Out with the Gout

This is a bit over due.

But there was quite a bit of house prep to do and packing for our trip to Florida before I could sit down and type this.

You might remember that Monte missed the last few steps of our stairs and went down hard a few weeks ago.

The next morning he sported a bruise and a jazzy limp.

Well, the next morning he woke up at 2:00 am with an INTENSE pain in the joint of his toe.

Like, I-think-I’ve-been-shot-in-the-toe intense.

He grabbed his pillow and blanket to go downstairs to the living room couch to read or something to take his mind off the searing pain.

I could hear him say “Ow!” on each step.

But he forgot about THE VAPORS of the lingering smell of polyurethane from our hardwood floors being finished.

So back up the stairs he came a few minutes later.

I could STILL hear him say “Ow!” on each step.

In the morning, we investigated his foot.

It was red and swollen and hot.

Weird, since it didn’t look that bad a day after his fall. 

Why now?

Ellie decided that Monte’s foot swollen looks WAY more human than his foot not swollen.

The puffiness filled out his crooky hammer toes nicely.

I finally convinced him to go get an x-ray.

The doctor took one look at his foot and said,

“You’ve got gout!”

Two days before Monte tumbled down the stairs and ended up with a jazzy limp,

he looked at me across the table and asked if I thought he looked old.

He said he felt like the reflection in the mirror was, well, reflecting old.

I told him no, he still looked like normal Monte to me.

And he does.

But nothing beats out any remaining hope of youth like a diagnosis of gout.

Monte insisted on an x-ray anyway.

Nothing broken.

Except maybe a hairline fracture to his pride.

When he called me from the pharmacy,

I was shocked.

Then we both gave our reactions to gout 

which exposed how little we know about it.

I thought it was something invalid’s got because they couldn’t move around enough.

Monte thought it was an extremely elderly frail disease.

In fact, as we told people about Monte’s gout, it was interesting the reactions we received:

“Is he a big rich food eater?”

“Likes the beer, huh?”

“Does he abuse prescription drugs?”

So in a short amount of time, 

Monte became a fat, 

drunk,

pill popper 

with gout.

Which he is not,

by the way.

Turns out, his brother had it as did his father.

It can be chronic or injury-induced.

Once Monte’s blood work came back, it seems he has the latter.

Thank goodness, this might be his only bout with gout.

But Monte still has medicine to take and he still has to walk around with a “hurts like a gun shot wound” pain in his big toe joint.

He drove all the way to Florida just fine even though I said I’d drive

and McDaniel was ALL TOO WILLING to step in as well.

In fact, on our first morning at the beach, Monte and I walked 4 miles.

Monte was convinced that the sand and the ocean air cured his gout and 

THAT JUST MIGHT BE why old people retire to Florida.

Then we went to a fort.

Stay tuned…