As you may know (if you have ever read this site before), I enjoy a little game called 'World of Warcraft'. For those that don't know about computer games, you take control of a little person, team up with other people and delve into dungeons to kill evil monsters in a fantasy setting¹.

One of the essential things that you need to do before your character enters these large dungeons is to make sure that you are carrying a stock of 'health potions', magical drinks that heal the damage that you character may have taken in the aforementioned fighting of monsters.

I can remember to stock up on these life-saving potions, and this is just a computer game².

So, to translate this into a real world situation if I needed a 'potion' to survive, I'd be damn sure to carry it around with me.

Why then do I find myself going to asthmatics, many of whom are old enough to know better, who let their life-saving inhalers run out? If I were asthmatic I'd make sure that I always had at least two inhalers at all times. Or is there some bizarre flaw in the way these medicines are allocated.

I'm sure that if I were like my last patient (unable to sleep without at least one 'blast' on my inhaler) I'd have one tied around my neck. I could maybe understand it if my patient were a teenager, but this patient is a full grown man.

Oh well, just another mystery for me to ponder.

¹For those who play, yes I know this is hugely simplistic

²I'm addicted but I can still call it 'just' a game