Not my proudest moment

When Charlotte was five months old she had a major operation to separate the bones of her skull which were prematurely fused.  It was an incredibly stressful period of our lives and an experience I hope never to repeat.  As Charlotte’s hair regrew over the large scar that runs from ear to ear across the top of her head, and the follow up medical appointments became fewer and further between, we thought about the ordeal less often.

Charlotte will continue to have a series of appointments every year as her growth and development are monitored.  We are told there is a very slim chance that the bones can fuse again which can cause intra-cranial pressure, the symptoms of which can be sudden behaviour changes, learning difficulties, nausea, and even vomiting.  This is not something we worry about on a day to day basis but we’d like to think that if the signs were there, we would put two and two together very quickly.

One day when Charlotte was four years old, the teacher at her pre-school told me that she appeared uncharacteristically irritated and had been scratching at the sides of her head.  Concerned by the suggestion of a sudden change in behaviour, I parted Charlotte’s curly hair and inspected her scar line – which is quite pronounced at the sides of her head due to the growth (of her head) over the years.  To my horror, I saw a series of large scabs running along either side of the scar line. 

I immediately telephoned the cranio-facial unit which manages her care, and told them what I had discovered.   I told them I was anxious that this indicated a rapid growth spurt and that her scar somehow wasn’t keeping up.  The administrative staff became quite concerned and scheduled an urgent appointment for Charlotte with the cranio-facial Registrar the following day.  I hardly slept that night, plagued by visions of Charlotte having holes drilled in her head to relieve intra-cranial pressure (based on absolutely no medical knowledge of the likely treatment).

The appointment felt like it took for ever to arrive, and by the time we went into the room to see the Registrar; I was beside myself.  We hadn’t met this particular Registrar before as they are continually changing, and are usually from foreign countries.  Positions in the cranio-facial unit are highly sought after, as the unit is run by one of the world's leading cranio-facial surgeons.  

The Registrar sat Charlotte upon the bed, and as he asked me a series of questions about her vision, behaviour, and signs of headaches, he began to inspect her scar.  After about a minute or two, the examination appeared to be over when the Registrar told Charlotte she could get down from the bed. He came and sat near me and after an unecessarily dramatic pause said very kindly… 'Your daughter has nits'.

It was one of those moments when you want the floor to open wide and swallow you whole.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, so I thanked the doctor for his time and apologised profusely for wasting it!  He was very kind and suggested I ask the chemist about nit treatment, probably not something they are taught in their fourteen years of medical specialist training - and certainly not what he flew half way around the world to be dealing with!

In my defence, I had never seen nits before.  Abby was only 6, and Charlotte was four and neither child had ever had them.  I was greatly relieved that it was only nits and that Charlotte wasn’t going under the knife any time soon, but I have not been so embarrassed in all my life.  I will never forget this first encounter with nits, and have sadly become a semi-professional nit identifier and nit remover in the years since.