Sugar, Spice, and Everything Lice

In case you ever hate your job… tonight I spent an hour and a half tasked with the momentous obstacle of “decontaminating” a homeless woman from body-wide lice so that she could receive life-saving medical treatment. Evidently the med-surg floor in our hospital has an aversion to contagious critters bordering on a public health hazard. This particular woman arrived in the Emergency Department, complaining of dizziness and lethargy. Her hemoglobin was subsequently found to be 6 (normal for women is 12-15), necessitating a blood transfusion in order to allow her to have more circulating blood and thus, improved oxygenation. However, she was also living on the street and came in covered head to toe in body lice, which landed her in room 12 and myself as the lucky recipient. I received report from the triage nurse and immediately readied our million-dollar, Ebola-prepared “Decontamination Room” where I would be tasked with giving this homeless woman a de-lousing treatment. The specialty shampoo arrived from pharmacy and I walked her to the Decon Room like a death-row inmate (she mourning the death of her dreadlocks and I mourning the death of my innocence). I gave report to the other nurses in my area, warning them to keep an eye on the man in room 13 as he was overwhelmingly high on PCP and was currently strapped down to his stretcher in sturdy, Velcro, police-grade wrist and ankle restraints, and shouting obscenities to innocent bystanders, most of which centered around “dat booty”. I then donned my PPE (personal protective equipment), prayed it was up to standard, and set about to de-louse my lady. We shampooed for a full 15 minutes and as I combed thousands of live lice through her long, black hair and down the shower drain, I realized the imminent futility and broke the upsetting news that I would need to shave her entire head. Unfortunately, as this was my first true foray into hair styling, I had forgotten to bring the hospital’s one electric shaver with me. Realizing I would need to make do with what I had, I whipped out my trauma shears and went to town on this poor, anemic, lice-covered woman. I gave her a full buzz-cut with my scissors and then trimmed her lice-coated pubes (that’s right, lice inhabit ALL of your body hair), while the tiny insects crawled up and down my own gown, the sole protector between the bugs and my body. After a solid 45 minutes we were finished and she showered off and sat down in the wheelchair. I then walked back into my assignment, which my coworkers were allegedly “watching”, to find my previously restrained and immensely agitated PCP patient not only unrestrained but standing in his room completely naked, doing toe-touches and yelling “I need cardio!” while his enormous mother sat, overflowing a chair in front of him and yelled “boy, you best quit smoking that wet or I’ma whoop yo ASS”. As his behavior escalated from a level of ‘cheeky shenanigans’ to one of ‘vocally obnoxious and creepy Oedipal comments’, he was finally served his parting paperwork and was discharged to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting city. Meanwhile, Lice Lady was finally ready for a CT scan under the condition that she would be dressed in a full Haz-Mat suit. Ok, sure… cue world’s largest eye roll. I slapped a thin, blue gown on her, sprayed her with lemon-scented Febreze, cleaned 32 dead lice off the head of her stretcher with scotch tape, and wheeled her over. One minute later, the charge nurse comes over to tell me that she has a new patient for my now-empty room. Evidently this is a 29-year old female who was brought in by the city police when her landlord called 911. According to their report, the patient had been evicted 5 days prior but had thus far refused to leave her apartment and had subsequently torn up all of the drywall, dipped her hands in various cans of paint, and left a collage of brightly-colored hand prints all over the walls. She is brought in on a stretcher in handcuffs, screaming that there is a Nazi watching her house and calls one of the cops “Officer Hitler”. As she shouts 1940’s-themed verbal delusions of grandeur, various sedatives are drawn up and administered intramuscularly while she attempts to bite the constables restraining her. T-minus 20 minutes until sleepy time. Lice Lady is now back from CT scan and is finally ready to be admitted to the floor. I call to give report to the receiving nurse and finally put an end to this miserable shift. I walk out of the core and straight into the break room, where I give myself a prophylactic de-lousing treatment while I drink a shower beer and question the existence of a higher power. I drive home and as I lay down in bed, praying there is nothing crawling on my body or in my hair, I can’t help but think about whether I’m qualified for a career change to hair-stylist and also about how much tequila I need to drink to repress the memory of this hellish shift.