Scary

I had a very unnerving moment at work at around 4:00 this morning. Nothing to do with the job - that was busyish, by night shift standards, but far from being overwhelming. Instead, it was due to a quirk of my metabolism. I suffer, from time to time, from gout, and now is one of those times. I usually keep the symptoms under control with ibuprofen, bought for pennies from the supermarket shelf, but there are occasions when the pain needs something a bit stronger, so I took a tablet of a prescription medication from a previous episode. A medication I've taken on numerous previous occasions, most recently just a couple of weeks ago. But this time, it all went wrong. I had an allergic reaction. One minute, almost, I was fine, waiting for the effects of the pill to kick in, the next my chest tightened up, I had what felt like an unswallowable lump in my throat, and I was itching all over. Luckily, I realised what had happened, and, equally luckily, I had some antihistamines in my bag, promptly taking one. Within an hour, the symptoms of the reaction had largely gone, even if the pain in my foot was as unpleasant as ever. Isn't evolution wonderful - a physiological reaction which developed to fight off environmental pathogens turning on its 'owner' causing, potentially at least, more problems than it solves. Not that I need it, but yet more evidence against the concept of an 'intelligent designer' - if humans had been 'created' in that supernatural fashion, side effects would be unheard-of - unless 'god' has a sick sense of humour, of course.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B