I was all very pleased with myself on Monday at justice being done and my getting away relatively unscathed in the grand scheme of things.

On Tuesday morning I was feeling very tired and had a problem with my sight in that the world did a jump to the left now and again. I was also in quite a lot more pain with all of the damaged muscle stiffening up. I rang in sick.

On Wednesday, the problem with my sight continued as did the tiredness. I also developed an odd painful problem where a yawn, laugh or sneeze generated a stabbing pain in my upper lip. I rang in sick again. In the evening I was 4 steps from the bottom of the stairs when the world lurched to the left and I made a grab for the vacuum cleaner to steady myself. I missed because muscle memory was a bit out of kilter with my perception of where the world was and they were both wrong. I picked myself up and rang NHS direct. They put me onto the out of hours GP who wanted me to come and visit the clinic but that wasn't really easy to do since Jo was out dancing, our 3 year old was asleep and I didn't feel fit to drive so we agreed that I'd make an appointment to see my GP in the morning.

This morning, I rang the surgery at 8:15 to be told that there were no available appointments. I gave a quick bit of background information and was given one of the appointments that they'd held back. I rang work and told them I had to go see GP.

I got to see one of the GPs I like. He dealt with a nasty kidney infection a while ago and is quite young. He found my left ear was rather red and bruised but also had a good look at my eye. He didn't like what he saw and referred me to an eye clinic at Leicester Royal Infirmary for a proper opinion. He also decided that I'm not allowed to spend time in front of a screen (oops) and am certainly not fit to drive and signed me off work for a week.

Jo took me to the hospital. I went prepared with a book to read for the likely long wait. After 45 minutes a nurse did the initial assessment and agreed that I needed to see one of the proper doctors and put in some eyedrops to dilate my pupils.

I went back to wait and about two minutes later the eyedrops kicked in. My short distance focus was the first thing to go. I'd been enjoying that book. I'm not good at sitting around with nothing to stimulate me but thankfully the bruising around the rest of my body has slowed me down enough that I was content to people watch instead. After 2 hours I asked the desk how far down the queue I was and was told that there were only 3 people ahead of me. I equated this to about half an hour, made my excuses that I'd told my wife that I'd call if it went much beyond two hours and headed outside. Daylight with fully dilated pupils was not a nice thing.

It didn't take long to see a doctor when I returned. I'd had problems with the nurse administering an internal pressure test and it had taken some time the first time. Eyedrops go in that have an anastetic (however it is supposed to be spelled) and then you have to look forwards while a physical probe is brought onto the surface of the eye to give it a nudge and find out how much pressure it is under. Trying to do that and getting the patient to not blink is not trivial. So he did it again. Then he spent a lot of time making notes and marking up areas on a couple of A4 sheets marked up to show the front and the back of the eyeball.

Then he said "That was a very close thing".

I queried this and he explained that there had obviously been a direct impact on my eye. The front is bruised, the rear is bruised heavily and there is inflamation around the optic nerve causing pressure from the swelling. If the kick had been a *very small* amount harder then I would be blind in my left eye. As it is, it'll be a few days before it goes down to safe levels and my vision goes back to normal. The not looking at a screen thing was rebuffed since keeping my head and eyes still is a *good* thing but I'll not mention that to work. With that, I was allowed home.

The plan was for me to catch a bus and I walked the 1/2 mile or so to the supermarket. I promptly missed the bus by around 5 seconds due to not being able to cross the road in time so I headed to the next stop where I could catch 3 buses. I stood there and 2 approached. I then found out a further problem. They had their headlights on. My irises were fully open. I could make out the number when they were within 6 feet. The damned things were too blurred and bright prior to that. They don't stop at that range. Yet another phonecall was required and Jo headed into town while I started walking out. We met somewhere in the middle since I didn't have to contend with traffic.

By 10pm, my pupils were startimg to contract so I took my customary evening walk (usually it is a run but I still try to get *some* exercise). I delighted in having *incredible* night vision and spent much too long out in the frost looking at leaves and the coutryside in general.