a whole week

My toe is still broken, although it no longer hurts enough to command my full attention.  My back is worse, despite careful exercise and enough rest.

I finally finished the dishes and cleaned the kitchen and part of the bathroom.  More laundry to do.  Gosh, this stuff never ends, but at least now what I have to do is just for me, waaaaay down from catering to someone who was never satisfied.  It is difficult to express how wonderful that is.  I will not even try.

One of my friends is battling with head lice.  She told me that she got it from her grandchild(ren), but my best guess is that the critters jumped to her head from her recently-resident old boyfriend from the past.  She already knows that I do not have any problems with this relationship, as she asked me, and as I really do not give a rat's fanny about what anyone else does.  It is heartfelt and kind of silly that she wants my approval.

Anyway, in the past month she has used four...count 'em, four...of those insecticide treatments.  Frankly, despite the potential harm (almost certain is my best guess, given the ingredients), were my noggin infected with them, I would have most likely have crafted a contraption to contain my entire scalp and worn it constantly, filled to the brim...crown?...with the most powerful chemicals available.  As it is, researching, going through her hair and doing the more holistic treatment that we tried on Friday, hell, even thinking about it, makes my head itch like crazy.

She has no one to help her, despite having three sons, an equal number of daughters-in-law and several nearly adult grandchildren who live mere minutes from her.  Even better is that over the past several years she has supported two of those families, financially and by having them live with her for years at a time, during which most of her furniture was destroyed.

Sorry, had to stop and scratch my head.

Because of my back pain, I will not be returning for more lice fun until tomorrow, when I will stop on the way over there for lice combs, some Cetaphil and hair clips.  Scratch.  Digdigdig.  I need a bookcase, and yes, one can actually need a bookcase rather than just want one.

I called her today and she is so close to losing it, like the whole thing, the entire Kielbasa even.  I rang her to make sure that she has set aside enough hours to properly go through her hair and scalp and scrape the nits off of her hair strands and drag those lousy louses, kicking and screaming, or what it is that lice do, off of  her head, and, hopefully, far away from mine.  Scritch-scritch.

She has.  She also went to the store yesterday for more poisons and because the itching is still making her insane-er, she went out and bought more this morning.  She promised to not use it today, but I will not be the teeniest bit surprised if she does use it. 

I do not blame her.  Even though I am at least a little concerned that the residual poisons may take advantage of my compromised immune system and that I will feel the effects, my main concern is that she might have entirely too much of that crap in her body already.  I could stop and research that issue, but, at this point, well, it is pointless, and not in the best interest of anyone to add an additional layer of suffering or concern.

I just took the opportunity to conduct more scratching to get a handful of the gloves I use for cleaning.  That should keep any of that stuff from being absorbed by my skin.

Lordy.  I wish that she had called me about this weeks ago.  I understand that it shamed her that no one would help her, and it breaks my heart that she finally had enough of feeling her scalp crawling all the damn time before she reached out.

We do battle tomorrow.  Full assault, followed by another holistic treatment, then another hunting mission on Thursday, and again on Saturday.

Lest anyone think me noble or caring, if I catch these miserable bastards, I may never talk to anyone again.

Ever.