Grow 'Em Big In These Here Parts

Saw a couple cases of head lice Thursday. The first one, it was alright. She had a couple of nits behind her ear and had been scratching for a couple of days. Rx for Ovide, tell her to wash her sheets or get outta the house for a couple of days, go camping or something. Nothing major....boom, Roasted!

The second.....I keep replaying the encounter in my head. Just imagine, big pregnant woman, with head lice the size of cockroaches. These critters weren't surviving on her scalp, they were evolving there. I swear to God I saw one using a bow and arrow, while another was jumping around a bonfire yelling, "LOOK WHAT I HAVE CREATED!" In all honesty I didn't even have to look for them, the lice were crawling everywhere. Turns out she has had this infestation (as have all her children and husband) for the past 18 months or so. She has been prescribed everything under the sun, but always insists it burns too much and stops using the treatment after an hour or two. I should have informed her that it wasn't the chemicals burning her that hurt, it was the evolving lice beginning to use plows on her scalp. We did the usual stuff, warning her about the risks to the baby, and that she can't use the lotions on the baby for almost two years. Talked some more about the importance of combing them out of everyones hair, etc, etc, blah, blah. The idea of cutting her hair off was brought up (did I mention she was Native American?), not gonna happen. She left without any treatment for it whatsoever and we quarantined the room till the Haz-Mat Team (janitors) could come with flamethrowers and declare the place clear.

What will probably happen: She'll get to Seattle to deliver the baby (she is high risk due to previous surgery complications), and they'll just hold her down and treat her before the C-Section or right after it.

How do you help someone who obviously (for the past 18 months) does not want your help? Why do they even come in anymore, apparently she wasn't getting the answer she wanted (this was the 6th visit for lice in the 18 months). But after the 2nd or 3rd visit, we ran out of solutions to give her. Goosefraabaah. Calm yourself JW. Goosefraabaah.