Doctor visit

So, I went for the first time today to a rheumatologist. I've lived that long!

I wish my doctor had sent me years ago, which I first had gout. Yes, beloved, I have 'the white man's punishment'.

Dr. Abeles explained gout to me for the first time that made sense. All about uric acid and how it's like sugar you try to dissolve in cold tea and it just won't. So it settles in your extremities--fingers and toes and ankles and wrists--these deposits of uric acid crystals. I have 17 deposits in my fingers alone and two in toes and one in my right elbow that makes my elbow look like the wicked witch of the West's elbow--that awful.

So, I'm going to have x-rays of my hands and feet--to see if there is bone damage--and having a uric acid blood test and he's starting me on a medication that will keep me from having an inflammation while reducing the uric acid in me and dissolving the bumps on my body. In two years, he assured me, I would be bump and gout free.

Why didn't I know this years ago?

Gout is a pain...truly, a big time pain.

I asked him why the deposits didn't hurt and he said, honestly, no one really understands why some deposits hurt and others don't and I should just be thankful.

He's the only Doctor I've ever been to who cursed twice in our conversation. Once about the fact that he has to go to computerized records or loose some of his insurance and Medicare payments ("God-damn it, it's coming", he said). And when he told me that reducing the uric acid in my body would actually make me more susceptible to inflamation  was often called 'paradoxical', he said, "that's bull-shit", it only makes sense since uric acid will be running around in you more. He talked to me more than any doctor ever has. And we talked about me being from WV (he caught my accent that I don't think I have) and how he loves cheesy grits (having gone to med school at Emory, in Atlanta). I gave him my line about grits being nothing more than a salt and butter delivery system and he loved that.

I liked him a lot. I looked him up on line and he had 47 comments and all of them rated him 5 out of 5. I know why now.

When he makes my bumps of uric acid crystals to away, which he assured me he could, I'll like him even more.

Ever had a gout attack?

Awful, awful, awful.

This guy is the fourth member of the Trinity for me right now.