It's Not The Shoes

      Recently, I've found out I have gout. It was sort of a shock to me considering I'm only 30 and gout tends to be one of those "old lady things". In the doctor's office, my large toe swollen and my feet in excruciating pain, I conjured up images of wearing plastic pearls and reading tasteful romance novels on a park bench. I would go to bed before it's dark and rise early in the morning to eat hard boiled eggs with lightly buttered toast. My hands would discover a talent for knitting, I would turn the volume up on my television, and suddenly cardigans would be my favorite accessory. It wasn't exactly the life I wanted, so I decided I had the wrong shoes and pushed off the idea of having some sort of issue other people have. I'm 30. Women my age don't get gout. It must be the shoes. Well, I'm here to tell you, it wasn't the shoes.

      My husband has been out of work for a month due to a surgery to save him after a ruptured appendix. He's been healing under my vigilant care and begrudgingly eating healthier by my command. The doctor ordered low sodium and I dove right in to innovative cooking. He has yet to thank me or acknowledge everything I've done for him - which includes taking on a second job - but I guess love is supposed to be blind. He's blind to a lot of things, even as he recovers in front of a video game or something on Netflix he can't tear his attention away from. We don't have serious conversations. When he does speak to me, he tends to complain. I can't talk to him about my gout. When I tried to talk to my mother about it, how it feels, what I'm going through, she did her typical "pass off". It could be worse, so she said, and then continued to tell me everything she sacrificed for me while I was a child. She also suggested I wear more comfortable shoes.

       Now to clear the record, I wear a very comfortable pair of flats that give me great support. My second job is in retail and, though I work in an office mostly seated during the day, I am always on my feet at night. Retail is unforgiving on a young woman with gout. In my free time, I did some research on my own. Apparently, I have a lot to look forward to. Some people with gout end up with deformed feet, can barely walk, and live rather painful lives. Then there's always medication. The pills look better every day. One word in my research stuck out to me, despite the hope of medicated relief: deformity. It's a bitter pill to swallow. I'm less vain than I was in my college years - getting a degree which took me nowhere - but the thought of having deformed toes and ugly feet felt shameful. I didn't want to explain it to anyone. It hurt me deeply. Yet I couldn't tell my husband, who was supposed to be my partner in life, and I couldn't tell my mother. I had to call my best friend who was hundreds of miles away.

      After saying it out loud to her, voicing my concerns, my best friend told me what I needed to hear. I needed to focus on myself, on the treatment of gout, and do the right things so my body wouldn't rebel. I needed to conquer this and not think of worst case scenarios. In all likelihood, she assured me, I wouldn't have any deformities. My small amount of vanity satiated, I hung up the phone and pondered the necessity of a second job. I was doing it to support my husband's bills until he returned to work, so staying off my feet until a podiatrist gives me the right medication wasn't an option. I'll have to go to my second job and force a smile, pretend my feet aren't throbbing in pain, and just keep telling myself that this isn't my life. I'll get better. Karma is supposed to repay us for our good deeds, so I should have some good karma on its way. I'll welcome it with open arms.