THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410200151
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Kimberly R. Grim learned a useful lesson about parenthood last week when she took her 6-year-old daughter to a doctor's office to get an unexplained rash diagnosed.
The problem began when her daughter, whose name she does not want revealed, complained of nausea last Saturday morning. Grim examined her daughter and found a red rash on her neck.
Grim called her brother-in-law, a nurse, who thought it might be measles and recommended bed rest and even a whiskey-laced fruit drink to help, as Grim put it, ``let the measles surface.''
The remedy did not work. The following day, Grim then took her child to a local urgent care center where the physician seemed puzzled and instructed Grim to see a specialist.
As instructed, they drove to Fairfield where the second doctor, after an examination that included throat cultures and the discovery of what sounded like a heart murmur, announced the child's ailment was a ``non-specific dermatitis.''
Discharged to the lobby, Grim was left to think about the problem. She looked at her child's neck more closely and found what looked to be small white sacs attached to the child's blond hair.
``I asked to see the doctor and said, `Would you mind looking again?' I showed him the sacs and he said, ``Hmm, this is a possibility.' ''
The doctor took a sample and returned to the lab to examine the specimen. The doctor returned and told Grim the sacs were actually clothing lint, she said.
Grim sent her daughter and the annoying rash back to Pembroke Meadows Elementary School the following Monday and asked the school nurse to look the child over.
``It was less than one minute before this woman came back and told me my child's head was completely infested with head lice,'' Grim said.
Thus began a day's long task of placing all of her child's belongings, from barrettes to pillows, in plastic bags where they were stored in the garage for a few days until the tiny larvae and lice died. Then all her clothing, bedroom linens - virtually everything the child had regular contact with - had to be washed.
``We stuffed everything into these plastic bags. Now, my whole house is one big hazardous waste dump of plastic bags,'' she said.
The family bought an over-the-counter treatment and applied it, while Grim combed her daughter's hair for hours, clearing it of lice, one of the most common and easily treated childhood ailments.
``I had to ask myself how could I have missed it,'' Grim said. ``I mean, we're clean people. We shower regularly and all that.''
Grim said she was angry that two doctors missed what in retrospect seemed a common ailment and a simple diagnosis for a trained professional. She was especially angry when she had to pay at least one doctor's bill: $85. A second bill has not arrived.
She said the tiny egg sacs were almost impossible to see against her daughter's light blond hair. Now they are gone.
``(My daughter) and I agree that now when someone walks into the house they will get a hair check.'' by CNB