"Unclean, Unclean!"

    I went to the hospital the other night because I was in severe pain.  My right ankle has suddenly got to the point that I couldn't walk on it.  Once at the hospital, they confirmed that I probably had "gout."  After discovering this, I disovered something very interesting.  When people thought I had twisted my ankle, they had a lot of compassion for me - when they heard I had gout, they looked at me like "I didn't know you were that old!"  Instead of "Awww..." I heard "Ohhhh...." 
 
    The worst were my teenage daughters who don't have a problem telling me how they feel.  They said "That's it, you are going to have to sleep on the deck."  I said, "Really, it's not leprosy - it's gout!"  I expected them at any minute to start chanting "unclean, unclean" and pointing demandingly at the door as they reached down to pick up a stone.  To make it worse, I tried to go to work at day later after taking the codeine and ended up almost convincing my co-workers I am a drug addict as well as a leper.  I be lucky if I'm not exiled somewhere. 

    In all of this, I did find a great cure for the pain.  Cherry Concentrate seem to be a miracle for the pain.  Very thankful to Pam S. for the tip!