Gout And Everything After

Until Taco Bell starts making and selling a veggie variant, today is the last day I’ve stuffed chicken chalupa into my mouth. I’m finally, totally, swearing off meat from my life not because I’ve become an animal welfare activist all of a sudden, but because I have gout. Yes, GOUT, which, according to Dr. Philip S. Chua, is “a chronic inflammation of the peripheral joints caused by the deposition in and about connective tissues, like the joints and the tendons, of needle-like monosodium urate crystals resulting from very high levels of uric acid in the body fluids. The inflammation causes swelling, pain, heat, redness and stiffness in the joints. Gout comprises about five percent of all cases of arthritis in the body.” It’s getting more burdensome as days go by, and I have to do something drastic if I want to harbor any hope of going to Spain and walk the Camino de Santiago.

I already suspected having an arthritis-related disease a few years back when, one morning somewhere in Africa, I woke up with a terrible pain in my left knee. It was so painful I needed to rush to the doctor for an injection of painkiller, as over-the-counter pills were just not strong enough. I told the doctor of my suspicion, but she gave me a motherly smile and told me I was too young to be afflicted with the disease. I left the clinic with my left knee able to support me, and with a smug smile on my face because someone had confirmed my youth.

Some months ago, I started feeling an uncomfortable throbbing in my lower left limb. So I went to my friendly doctor at Saint Luke’s and she confirmed what I’ve always suspected - I have an arthritis-related disease.  Gout to be precise. She prescribed me some medicines and advised me to exercise and stay away from certain food. She mentioned beans and red meat, but further research informed me that there’s quite a long list of food I should not put into my mouth if I want my joints to still function when I’m forty five.

So today I say farewell to chicken, as I’ve earlier done to beef, pork, shrimps, crabs, oysters and other shellfish. Soon, I will also have to bid adieu to tuna and salmon (sushiiii!!!) and, yes, chocolate.

I wonder what wrongs did I commit in my past life to deserve my present fate...