Fuzzy Logic

That's the shit. Is there nothing more perfect than a good cold & flu tablet? Yep, it had to happen eventually - I'm coming down with my 1st cold of the season. Can't complain too much as I've had a pretty good run despite my absurd disregard for the prevailing weather conditions. Walked around Prague for 2 days with soggy feet, tramped London in nothing but a light coat, late nights, early mornings, too much alcohol & not enough vegetables - by all rights I should be hooked up to something intravenous in a palliative care hospice.

But none of that matters now - I can feel those sweet, sweet pseudoephedrines (I've been reading my tabloids) coursing through my veins, swimming around my head and settling in my heavy limbs. Ahhh the fuzziness.

I tend to feel the effects of these garden variety drugs a little more acutely than your average patient as I generally avoid using pain relief medication at all. Damned legacy of a ridiculously stoic family. Case in point: my father met my mother (a nurse) while he was being treated for an infected burn wound in hospital. By all accounts the thing was almost gangrene, but he just kept on working... unless your bodily organs are hanging from a large gaping hole that's been ripped through your sternum, one doesn't seek namby-pamby medical treatment apparently. Mum's no better even with her nursing background. Think I've seen her bed ridden once in my entire life & even then she was up again by dinner time to make a nuisance of herself in the kitchen.

And don't even get me started on Grandma. She was in hospital on one of those self-administering morphine drips, her entire body racked with cancer, & still bloody well refused to ever push the little button which released the opioid. Instead she used every (& I mean every) last breath pestering the doctors to release her.

My aversion to the snake oil salesmen & women (a.k.a. the white coat posse) is a little less extreme... although I suppose I'm still young - you seem to grow into this dysfunction in my family. The only notable hint of hereditary symptoms I can recall is when I contracted a UTI at uni. I left the damn thing untreated for 3 VERY uncomfortable months before succumbing to pressure from my boyfriend & getting the laughably simple antibiotics prescription from my GP. He didn't think it was so laughable. Dr. Grumpy Pants gave me a very severe dressing down for my misplaced sense of stoicism & I've been a little less hard core ever since - hence my cold & flu tablets today.

I just hope I don't harbour some secret addictive personality trait - these things are goooooood.