Playing Head Games

We got the dreaded call from school on Monday, the one that we managed to avoid all winter only to receive in June: lice.

Pick up Marissa, please, she's got bugs crawling in her hair.

If you didn't know this about me, I am squeamish about bugs. Especially ones that feed on humans, like ticks, fleas and lice. Anything that's tiny but sucks blood and transmits disease makes me shudder and cringe.

My husband got the call first so he picked her up and we met at home. He began the process of cleaning and de-lousing Marissa, while I began the process of stripping her bed, pulling all the soft things out of her room and cleaning.

We eventually shifted responsibilities: I finished the de-lousing while he made dinner.

I then went for an evening haircut appointment that I had made weeks earlier. I warned my stylist that my daughter had come home with lice that day. She bravely went forward with the haircut as scheduled and informed me that if she had found anything in my hair she would have to stop and send me home too. The fact that I walked out with a nice cut and style made me believe she didn't find anything.

I picked up new brushes and combs for all the family members on the way home, we put the kids to bed and went to bed ourselves.

And then it began.

The itching.

The crawling feeling.

The belief that my head was covered with bugs.

I tossed and turned. I scratched even though I tried not to. I eventually got up and sprayed a tea tree/water mix on my hair, which not only reduced the itching but is supposedly hated by lice everywhere.

Finally, my alarm went off and it was time to face the day after a fitful night of sleep.

I took my pillow case off my pillow to begin re-stripping our bed and rewashing sheets, only to find the cause of the itching: little tiny hairs from the haircut that collected on my pillow.

My brain had me convinced that I had lice.

Just to set my mind at ease, I did a lice treatment on myself this morning as well. Because I'm sure that if I hadn't, I would be spending my day at work scratching my head, believing that I had creepy crawlies on me.

We humans are great at head games, aren't we.