If you have never encountered the nasty germ with the pet name, "C-Diff", but really named Clostridium difficile, get down on your knees and give praise to the gods immediately. I mean it.
The "clostridium" refers to the spindle shape of this motile bacteria. The "difficile" means that this is one nasty bugger that gives a brutal fight to the finish, i.e. it is obstinate and difficult to eradicate.
My first encounter with CDiff was over ten years ago. Here's how it went down: Husband had an ongoing sinus infection. After many months, he was put on a big horsepill of the antibiotic, Augmentin. He was supposed to be on it for 3 weeks to a month. I think it was within a week that diarrhea started---a known side effect of this drug. He stopped and was put on another.
But the "D" persisted. Two months later, it caught up with him. He became dehydrated and passed out. He was admitted to the hospital and his body sucked up 2-3 bags of IV fluids pretty quickly. He was in for a couple of nights and the diagnosis was C-Diff.
With a toddler and infant at home, it was difficult to visit him but I managed once or twice. And I committed to memory a conversation I had with his nurse. She told me three things:
1) gloves
2)Clorox bleach wipes
3)the smell
Wear gloves at all times when cleaning bathrooms. Buy a product called Clorox bleach wipes and wipe with them all over the place. You will know C-diff by the smell of it----and you will never forget it.
While he was in the hospital, I contracted C-diff. Probably because I had not used gloves when I cleaned the bathrooms nor did I have Clorox wipes around. The spores of C-Diff can live for a long time and sometimes bleach won't even kill them off.
With an infant strapped to my body at all times, it was hard to get to the bathroom in time. It was a brand of "D" that I had never had before. And the smell. I'll never ever forget it. It's a tell-tale odor marked by a sickeningly sweet overtone.
From that day to this, I have never not worn gloves when doing bathroom scullery duty.
After battling it for a couple of days, I came up with my attack plan. I stopped eating. Anything eaten perpetuated the cycle. So my only intake was hydration drinks and broth. I also went to my local health food store and asked the wonderful sales lady there what to do. She said if it were her, she would buy the most expensive probiotic she could afford and take double. I purchased one for $25 by New Chapter. My situation was under control within a couple of days after taking these steps.
Husband was put on the C-Diff antibiotics and eventually his situation abated.
And now we encounter C-Diff again. Husband's father was in and out of the hospital and nursing home starting in October and he contracted C-Diff by December. He was released before Christmas. After living with him again, Husband's mother contracted it and was admitted to the hospital for a week. A week after mother-in-law got home, father-in-law was sent back to hospital with---you guessed it---C-Diff. They have both been together for another week and are apparently out of the woods. But C-Diff can be on-going and an uphill battle for many who contract it---especially those who are elderly and/or immune compromised. These days, if they suspect a patient has C-Diff, signs are placed on the patient's door and masks and gowns are handed out.
I have my weapons of choice in place if we get a direct hit in the household----and this time I will buy an even more expensive pro-biotic.
So this is the year of the horse in Chinese zodiac terms. But in my household.....it appears that we may have ushered in...the year of the louse.
For almost fifty years, I have blithely gone forth without an education on Pediculus humanus capitis, or as you might know it, head lice.
Because of this lack of knowledge, I thought it was dandruff on First Daughter's head. She experienced itching and I saw what I thought was dandruff. (It turns out that lice nits look like dandruff but you can not flick them off.) I began treating her "dandruff" with a macadamia hair oil. I had enough for three treatments and, during this time, her scratching stopped. (Unwittingly, this probably did treat the lice.) But I ran out of oil and the itching came back. It was never that bothersome and she would just complain here and there.
First Daughter and I went out one recent night to get hair cuts. She was in the chair first. The hair dresser called me over within a minute. And said: "She has lice." I protested: "No, no---it's just dandruff." She then proceeded to school me on head lice because she had a first hand nightmare episode with one of her kids. Her story got dramatic: re-infestations, thousands of dollars, the finale involving mattresses thrown out on the curb.....
So I asked her to check me---I was fine. I said I would like to go ahead and get my haircut. "Sorry. Your daughter can not be in the shop." Oops.
We gathered our belongings and scurried out into the night. Daughter sobbing; me trying to go into lice removal mode. At the grocery store, I found a lice kit and booked it home.
Then the Abbot and Costello routine began. First: head check for all family members with a head of hair (Dad didn't rank here being mostly bald). I sort of knew what to look for after the hair dresser's instructions---but both husband and I are blind as bats so it was a challenging endeavor. Second Son was fine. First Son had lice.
Second: the treatments. Putting on a gel solution; waiting; running a fine toothed comb through the hair in 1/2 inch sections. The treatment killed the lice and the lice eggs. The comb pulled out the dead.
Third: Stripping beds. Bagging stuffies and bedrests. Starting an endless stream of laundry. The workload was daunting. My education had just begun.
Quick google searches made a couple of things clear:
There would be three possible findings on the lice heads: the actual insects crawling around, the live eggs attached to individual hair strands no further than 1/4 inch from the scalp, and, lastly, the "nits" which are the empty egg shell casings that the insect has hatched out of. The lice eggs and nits must be pulled off the individual hair strands because they are attached with the equivalent of lice crazy glue. After the treatment, a great deterrent to a head being a good "host" for lice is to keep the hair dirty and oily with tea tree oil preferably involved.
The bottom line learned, however, was that head lice are relatively harmless. Of all things to get, it really isn't that bad. (Unless you have OCD but that's another story altogether.) You can't get diseases from them and the worst part is the scratching.
The next day, I drove out to various stores collecting and refining my tools of the trade. Walgreen's came up the winner in lice supply products and actually warranted two trips by the end of the day.
By the third day, I had a break in doing laundry and happened to pull out a hair from my head to find a little bump exactly 1/4 inch from the end: a lice egg.
I was dependent on my blind as a bat husband to get the insects out of my head.
We have made it through the scourge but I will remain ever vigilant with oils, potions and new nit picking techniques. A good tight French braid also helps out.
In the course of this education, I began to realize the close tie-in with an old interest of mine: linguistics. I am now fully authorized to use and understand the term: "nit picking". As well as: "go through it with a fine toothed comb." Not to mention: "lousy", i.e. he feels lousy, what a louse, the room was lousy with (fill in the blank). Any prizes involved?
