Quarantine.

Are you ready for a tale of sadness and utter woe? I'll wait right here while you grab some tissues -- it's a tearjerker.

Ready? Good.

If you've been a follower of this blog for a length of time, you may recall that in November of last year I was student teaching in a first grade class. Amidst all of the small children and flying germs, I semi-tragically was afflicted with pink eye. It was only semi-tragic because it meant I was required to miss a few days of school, and I did not exactly love teaching first grade.

If you have not been a follower of this blog for a length of time, allow me to repost a picture so you can understand how truly grim this illness is:

If I knew how to add music to this blog, I would post the sound clip of the shower scene from Psycho here. But as I do not, you'll just have to imagine it yourself.

As it turns out, this was not the first time I caught pink eye, nor would it be the last. (The first time, incidentally, was almost exactly a year prior, when I was in a third grade classroom for about four weeks as part of the education program.)

Fast forward to the first weekend in August. Jacob was in the midst of changing jobs, so we decided between the last day of his old job and the first day of his new one, we'd make a quick trip down to Arizona to visit his family. We enjoyed general merriment, swimming, and central air conditioning. We spent quite a bit of time with the nieces and nephews, and one night we went to a children's museum the same evening approximately half the population of Arizona also attended.

The night we drove back to Utah, my left eyelid was starting to feel a little sensitive and swollen. When I woke up the next morning, it was thick and puffy. And it wasn't long before I self-diagnosed that I had pink eye again.

Fortunately for me, I still had my eye drops from last November (and they hadn't expired yet), so I undertook a vigorous regimen of using eye drops, washing my hands almost psychotically every time I touched my face, and switching out pillow cases every night.

It seemed to work. The disease remained isolated in just one eye, and after a few days it cleared up completely.

I enjoyed two glorious weeks of having the scleras (fancy words for whites) of my eyes the same color.

And then -- and THEN! -- two days ago pink eye struck again. In the other eye this time.

I think the fates hate me.