The "Psychotic Bastard" and Wives

They tried to make it sound almost…like a privilege, this gout* thing.

The “rich man’s disease,” they called it when I hobbled into Urgent Care with my unaccountably swollen and aching left foot.  And then they proudly told me how in medical books there was always a picture of Henry VIII eating a big turkey leg with his own leg up on a stool all bandaged up—it sounds medieval, doesn’t it?  Gout.

Oh, okay, Henry was from the Tudor period, I know.  But there were two other things wrong with bringing Henry into this discussion.

First, I’m an Eddie Izzard fan and we are distantly British--one of the old stud books places our family name among  the titled, if not us…specifically.   And it was Eddie who reminded us that Henry VIII is the king who founded the “Church of the Psychotic Bastard” solely so that he could bed and wed any woman he fancied and then slice her head off if she didn’t give him that male heir he needed or he found another woman he fancied more. 

Actually, Henry found ways to bump off almost everyone he didn't like.  There truly ought to be a “Dahmer vs. Gacy vs. Henry VII” flick in there somewhere except that it probably doesn’t count if you get other people to do the butchering, does it?

But I digress.   Yet another symptom of impending decrepitude—do forgive.

Second…the image they use in those medical books is Henry not as the handsome, hard bodied young thing he apparently was in his youth.  It is Henry when he was old and fat and stinking with runny leg ulcers.

And wait—here’s a third.   He died at the age of 56.  I am now 59.  Which means he was actually much younger than I am now when those runny leg ulcer portraits were painted.  

Of course, we know that the life expectancy of even the richest Brits of his era wasn’t very long even if they escaped the wrath of The Psychotic Bastard.   For it also is not wise to eat little bitty diamonds, rubies and emeralds sprinkled upon those big ass turkey legs like salt as I once read some monarchs liked to do.   And Henry just has to have been one of them—his character notes scream wretched excess.  

So the fact that he began his rapid descent into hellishly bad health right around the same age I was diagnosed with one of his diseases…did give me pause…

Until I remembered the only other person I know who’d had gout.   That was my beloved Uncle Joe, who’d drummed for Fats Waller for a while as a young man.   

I remember seeing him sitting with his leg up on a hammock watching the Sox or the Bears or some sentimental old black and white movie on one of those gorgeous old oak and brass TV consoles and adoring me with his  jewel-like eyes whenever I said or did anything.

He was a beautiful caramel colored man with wavy salt and pepper hair and greenish hazel eyes--the perfect complement.   And if he was suffering at all…I never saw it.   All I saw was that face.  And all the love in it.  He made gout look almost…glamorous.

So when the very earnest and efficient Urgent Care folks told me that achy, swollen left foot was probably “gout,” I thought about Uncle Joe first.  And I almost smiled. 

Until the Henry VIII story reared its ugly head.

And I was definitely no longer smiling after I was told I had to have all kinds of blood tests and X-rays, after having done that only a week before for my annual check up.   I had also had X-rays at the dentist, and been forced to return to have yet another old filling made whole. 

But that…is what getting old is about.   No matter how careful you’ve been, there comes that day when you begin to hear doctors say about you what they said about your parents or other elders.  It’s akin to that moment when you say something to your children that your parents used to say to you.  Only now, it’s your body going the way of those elders.

So now, every medical appointment “begets” at least one more.  And a battery of tests.  And X-rays.  And sometimes, joy of joys, a new pill!   The Vicodin from Urgent Care was kinda fun.  For a day or two.  And then I got nervous about it and dumped them down the toilet.  Old and addicted…not a good combo, that.

To confirm the Urgent Care diagnosis, my primary care doctor ordered a somewhat…macabre new lab procedure.   I had to pee into a toilet “hat” for 24 hours, collecting a day’s worth of urine in a big orange bottle to be turned in at a local lab the next day.  I’m not kidding. 

What a singular joy it was to sit in a room with all the other elders—several just off a nursing home bus that had rolled up just before I parked—all cuddling our little orange pee bottles and trying not to look at each other.

When I handed it in, the clerk at the lab told me to count my blessings.  There is apparently another test which requires you to save all of your poo for three days.  Three days.    She did not know what that test was for.  I sent up a silent prayer to be spared whatever ailment that might be. 

And you know...I feel…betrayed, somehow.  As if an old friend had suddenly turned on me out of the blue.  Not exactly for no reason—I could’ve been a better friend, to be sure, so a little potch in the tuchus is in order.  But I was eating better and getting more exercise, and now it turns out that some of the things that I was told to do to accomplish that…give you gout.

Now, I still have the smooth, wrinkle-free skin Uncle Joe and most of my relations kept right up to the very end.   In fact, when I handed over the clip board full of legal papers at Urgent Care the clerk blinked, looked up at me and said, “You are way too young to be retired!”  I couldn’t quite tell if she was chiding or complimenting me.  Didn’t matter.  I was glad she was so shocked.

My primary care doctor was just as shocked—and chagrined.   The diet he’d just suggested to go with my new exercise regime might actually have contributed to the problem.   Losing weight too rapidly can cause flare ups.

In fact, gout management completely contradicts almost all the other dietary advice you’re used to.    Heart smart oatmeal?   That’s a no-no.  So are most of the vegetables you’re usually told you need more of.  My iron is a little low, but the spinach and iron rich meats I might’ve turned to for that…also taboo.

In fact, if you look at the things someone with gout has to avoid…it stands even the revised food pyramid on its head.   

Here’s what I shouldn’t eat:

Right, almost no meat or seafood—God, just…shoot me now.    I live for seafood.  And the occasional serious steak.    And the “bad veggie” list includes…well…all the veggies I love best.   I have never liked tomatoes except with large hunks of mozzarella and sprinkled with olive oil and basil.   Now, they’re all I’m allowed to have except “some green vegetables.”  Does basil count?

Happily, my docs all say that the main thing for me to do as my case is pretty mild yet is drink lots of water and eat…whatever, for now.  That is a good thing.  We’re stubborn about food in my family—in fact, we take that to extremes in some cases.

One extreme case was my great-aunt Historia who deliberately died a few days after being told that many of her favorite dishes were no longer good for her health and discovering that many of those favorite dishes no longer tasted as good as they once did, anyway.  

I’m not joking.  When served some family favorites as a little treat before the big change, she grumbled that she couldn’t taste anything, and mumbled something about not wanting to live if she couldn’t enjoy anything anymore.

Two days later, after refusing to eat at all, she went “to sleep” peacefully in her easy chair. 

I’m not going that far.  But suddenly, some things I didn’t understand about my elders are crystal clear to me.  Getting old…taketh away some things.  Some things you really don’t wanna give up.

That may be why the elders in my mom’s nursing home had so much trouble eating.  They seemed to almost…dread food.   We had to put my mother in a special program where a nurse sat with her for an hour making sure she ate a few spoons full of each food group and drank a whole vitamin shake when the going got particularly rough.

I couldn’t believe it.  The woman had been one of the best cooks in our family—and that is high praise indeed.   All the sistahs could cook—Southern food better than sex.   

Now, the taste buds get fuzzy and dull, I know.  But she could get up for some KFC if I brought it.  So we brought it every week, to make sure she ate something.  It wasn’t “good” for her.  But by then…they just wanted to see her eat, period.

When I think about the meals she was served in her final stop on the way to eternal rest…it reminds me of that bottom list.  And worse, she had to have it all chopped into a sort of “Salisbury steak smoothie” thing, for a while, when her stomach went through some particularly ugly changes.

Yummy.

I’m not there yet.  But…I’m closer to it now than I want to be.  This gout thing gives that old minstrel show quip “Feets don’t fail me now” a whole new meaning.

There’s a water bottle with measurements up the side—from my daughter’s stint as a Sundance volunteer—that sits right on top of the fridge waiting for me to fill it to the 16 oz. line from the filtered water dispenser and chug it every time I enter the kitchen for any reason.

I may even find one of those runny leg ulcer portraits of the Psychotic Bastard and put it there under a magnet where I can see it while I’m drinking it. 

Next to a picture of my gorgeous Uncle Joe, to remind me how to age gracefully.

*Mayo Clinic on "gout:"

"Gout is a complex form of arthritis characterized by sudden, severe attacks of pain, redness and tenderness in joints, often the joint at the base of the big toe...

Gout occurs when urate crystals accumulate around your joint, causing the inflammation and intense pain of a gout attack. Urate crystals can form when you have high levels of uric acid in your blood. Your body produces uric acid when it breaks down purines — substances that are found naturally in your body — as well as in certain foods, such as organ meats, anchovies, herring, asparagus and mushrooms..."

Mayo Clinic Web article:  Gout