Doctor's orders and a case of whiplash — all good news

I went to the local medical center for my appointment with my GP ("primary care physician" or, in French, mon médecin traitant. He and his assistant (or intern) carefully examined my right knee — the one that's been giving me fits for nearly two weeks now. Both doctor and intern pressed and squeezed the knee. They agreed that I had in all likelihood sprained or twisted my knee when I slipped on black ice while out for a walk with Tasha the Sheltie on the morning of January 18. That knee hurt more and more every day for nearly a week, especially every time I was going up or down stairs. And then it stopped hurting. Meanwhile I came down with with a raging cold and cough. All my joints started aching.

The doctor seemed to understand what had happened. He said the minor sprain I had suffered because of black ice had basically repaired itself over the nearly two weeks that had passed since the sprain happened and I had come to see him about it and the cold. The right knee is on the mend. I just have to remain prudent and take it easy. He said he saw no need for an x-ray or MRI because it was obvious that nothing was broken. There was no swelling, and all their squeezing and manipulating of the knee didn't cause me any significant pain. All that was good news. The doctor said he would treat the cold symptoms and the coughing, and once all that was under control, the aches and pains I was feeling in all my leg joints and in my upper back would disappear. I hope he's right.

Meanwhile, before we left the house for the medical center a weird thing happened. I felt like I had something in my left eye. A grain of sand for a in-grown eyelash, maybe. I put drops in the eye, and I gently wiped it with a cold-water compress. That's when it happened. I saw a lot of dancing blue points of light with that eye, which is my strong one. Then, suddenly, my vision went blurry, just as if somebody had turned off the sharp, clear vision I had experienced after cataract surgery on that eye back in September. Later in the day Walt and I were watching a movie with subtitles, and I couldn't read them. I also couldn't read my laptop computer's screen. Everything was blurry. I was feeling kind of desperate. What if my clear vision didn't come back?

I struggled to read an article on the internet that said the blue-dot thing was something that occurred routinely in some patients who had recently had cataract surgery. It would soon go away and my vision would clear up again pretty quickly. I hoped all that was true, and I went to bed after putting some more drops in the left eye. I hoped that I would wake up with clear vision this morning. And guess what? I did. Right now I can see just fine. What a relief! I can read what I've just typed on the laptop, and the TéléMatin TV screen is perfectly sharp and clear. I feel like I'm suffering from whiplash.