Gout and arthritis

Gout and arthritis.

Oh for the joys of growing old. It's at times like this when you become sorely tempted to throw in the towel. After all the gloom and doom, the end of the world forecasts and those melancholy musings about death, disease, social distancing, world confinement and that bloke who used to wander around the West End of London with that frankly ludicrous sandwich board around his neck, it had to happen.

My left foot has now come out in sympathy with the global affliction viral disease that is Covid 19. Ahhh! Please spare me your pity. This is not an unprecedented medical condition because it has happened before and besides, in the bigger scheme of things, the tablets are being taken and it's all being dealt with internally.  So there's no need to panic and all being well you find yourself hoping that the condition will just go away as soon as it came.

But yes folks yours truly has been diagnosed with both gout and arthritis. What about that for a double whammy? Now who on earth could have seen that one coming? After a number of chronically disturbing and hacking coughs during winters that just seemed to get longer and longer two more ailments crept up on you unobtrusively. You thought the coast was clear at the beginning of February when your body took yourself off to the gym for some much- needed therapy, mental and emotional improvement and a general state of healthy stability.

And then came gout and arthritis, those twin impostors that Kipling never got around to writing about and given my advancing years this may not have come as a complete shock to the system. Much to my disappointment though they're here and you might as well resign yourself to the ever- increasing number of sharp, stabbing pains in your ankles and a hideous swelling on the back of that ankle that resembles a hot air balloon. It could be worse but thankfully it is no more than that.

Now is the time for careful re-appraisal of my badly injured foot and ankle. Gout of course has always been associated with some debilitating medieval complaint where the unfortunate owner of the condition would have been accused of over -eating, over- indulgence, a totally debauched lifestyle and drinking in an extravagant, over the top style. If you spent day after day, week after week, month and month and year after year, stuffing your face with vast quantities of cholesterol then the penalty would have to be paid.

If you had a gout you only had yourself  to blame. People with gout tucked into vast quantities of meat. Frequently, you would gorge yourself during lavish banquets where tables groaning with enormous chicken legs and gut- busting, sizeable hunks of beef and lamb would be too much of a temptation to resist. Then there were those massive pints of beer, endless supplies of wine, port, gin and vodka before mouth- watering second helpings of apple pie and custard would follow swiftly. It had to happen sooner or later though.

So you had to blame yourself because you just couldn't help yourself. The last couple of weeks or so have seen a gradual deterioration and now your only emotion was  something akin to aghast resignation. You do your utmost to maintain a well balanced diet and a genuine commitment to fitness and then this just gives you a nasty nudge in the ribs. Now there is rather an awkward hobbling and general malaise where the very act of trying to walk becomes a painstaking operation.

You find yourself cursing the vulnerability of the human condition, that alarming self awareness of the ageing process and then smiling bravely through at it all. This is not legionnaire's disease, another bout of measles or a grumbling appendix which reminds me of a particularly agonising spell in hospital in early childhood. Of course we learn to live with the preponderance of aches and pains that are bound to visit us in old age but there isn't a great deal you can do about them- just live with them.

Then you're confronted with arthritis which once again sounds something like a very common medical inconvenience that only 90 year old plus people get and you don't because, although you're approaching 60, it does feel desperately unfair. You then discover that your mum has also got arthritis which of course is not the kind of news you'd like to hear at any time when a parent is suffering as well.

At the moment it's hard to tell which is worse. Is it gout which our kindly hospital doctor insisted it was or has the arthritis has ganged up on me just to make matters considerably worse? Arthritis normally attacks the nerve endings with a vengeance, leaving all of your muscles twisted and stiff as a board. 

Today you found yourself limping heavily and looking for any way of relieving the pressure on your damaged ankle and foot. You were told by the doctor that your commendable running career would now have to end because wear and tear had caught up with you. Mind you, running is perhaps a gross over- exaggeration because jogging and trotting had replaced that blistering pace. So it was with a slight twinge of regret that you told your wonderful daughter that dad would have to stop the running - at least for a while.

There you are folks. This has been the latest medical bulletin from the domestic hearth. Now gout and arthritis have taken up residence in my personal DNA. You wonder whether these are just genetic disorders, a throwback to the days of yore, that late 19th century period where your ancestors clinked pint after pint of  ale and lager in riotous nights of bacchanalia and your long forgotten uncles played the piano for hours and hours. Then they would drink as if alcohol were going out of fashion, boozing like proverbial sailors before lengthy games of dominoes, darts and shove ha'penny would last deep into the early hours of the following morning.

The fun and games would continue with violent arguments and disagreements, the threatened scuffling and show of fists before things would really kick off. This is slowly turning into the kind of year that none of us could have had any inkling of. You must remember the beginning of 2020 filled as it was with the promise of new horizons and the fond hopes of a bright new decade. And then we had to deal with a horrific disease which rapidly spread around the world before gout and arthritis landed on your personal doorstep. Still, we're all staying alert rather than at home and geographically speaking, we're about as far away as its possible to be from each other. One day though it will all end, the milk and honey will flow and the families of the world will link arms and live happily ever after. Keep well everybody.