AN old nemesis came back to haunt us last week.
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A foe we'd thought we'd long ago vanquished. No, not the nuns although funnily enough former colleague Alex Druce, once in charge of the coffee run at the Wingham Chronicle, now assistant cow counter with The Land last week tweeted us a photo of a shirt emblazoned with: 'You Don't Scare Me I Was Taught By Nuns' we must buy one.
We awoke last Thursday morn which is usually a good start to the day only to feel a once-familiar pain in our right foot.
Gout, an insidious malady we hadn't suffered through in nigh on six years, had returned.
Gout.
This correspondent was crippled for nearly 15 years by gout. We had to limp through most of the 1990s/000s because of gout. Our big toe was the usual hot spot, but then gout became all adventurous and decided to move to our ankles and on one particularly painful experience, our knee.
"Gout is more painful than childbirth," we wailed in this very space during a particularly nasty attack.
We were hoping to elicit some sympathy. Instead all we elicited was fury, rage and venom from mums, both new and old, all too keen to share their personal child birth horror stories. It was a defining moment. Whatever that means.
One of the worst aspects about gout, apart from the agony, is the fact that most people think it's a bit of a lark. Incorrectly, non-sufferers associate gout with over-indulgence generally and with the drink particularly.
We will concede that we were told by a local quack to change our lifestyle if we wanted to become gout-free. We had two options, he explained.
"You can do this by natural means or you can do it with drugs," he lectured.
Of course we chose drugs. And thankfully gout became something of a distant memory. Days turned into weeks, weeks to months and months to years. Gout left us alone.
"Mission accomplished," we declared, channelling the lamentable George W. Bush's proclamation after America (and Australia) illegally invaded Iraq.
But like Mad George, we went off too early.
Gout's never beaten. Just contained, as we discovered last week.
And this presented a problem, apart from a throbbing foot. In the ages since our previous attack we've become something of a Mother Teresa-type figure for fellow gout sufferers, who, when stricken would limp a path to our door seeking sage advice and more importantly, anti-gout tablets.
Time after time we'd send them hobbling away with a handful of pills and more importantly, hope.
We expected this typical show of caring would eventually result in a nomination for citizen of the year. It never has.
And just to make matters worse, this typical show of caring left the cupboard fairly bare as far as gout remedies were concerned, as we found out to our horror when we went looking last week.
As fortune would have it, the attack wouldn't rate among the most devastating we've encountered. We had enough gout counters in reserve to see us through.
But these are now worrying times. What if gout returns? Like most of Europe in 1939 we're not prepared for a war.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," US President Franklin D Roosevelt once said.
How true. Fear ... and gout.
Editor's note: Medical experts warn against taking another person's medication.
Want more My Shout? See here.