Nowt Abaht Gout

Twenty years ago I dropped a steel beam on my left foot. Not wearing steel-capped boots, the beam damaged the big toe on my left foot. Some three or four weeks later the toe nail fell off and a new one grew.

Six years ago I noticed a chalk-like covering on that toenail, but it caused no pain so I left it there; it has been there ever since.

Three weeks ago I woke in the middle of the night to what others would describe as “a stabbing pain” vicinity of my big toe. Ouch! indeed.

I wondered what would cause such pain. Wandered off to the web for medical advice, but settled on The Mayo Clinic which convinced me that the end-of-life was not near but maybe, at age 76, it was time I had SOMETHING wrong with me. Frankly, they had me at “severe attacks of pain, swelling, redness and tenderness in one or more joints, most often in the big toe.”

“... often waking you up in the middle of the night with the sensation that your big toe is on fire. The affected joint is hot, swollen and so tender that even the weight of the bed sheet on it may seem intolerable.” Was, as we say in the trade, over-kill.

For a different reason, years ago, I had boned up on Uric Acid crystals, which always makes me think of urine, and that makes me think of Kidneys; especially the over-worked variety.

So after much internal debate, I grabbed a cardboard carton and neatly stacked my jars of tea, coffee, sugar etc, anything that might cause extra work for kidneys. I microwaved my last cup of coffee, and settled on boiled rain-water only for drinkies.

Yesterday, on our way home from Catalina, I asked Althea about Doctors in Bonavista, and she told me about Nurse Practitioners. I thought about this and decided that a Nurse Practitioner, whatever that is, would be a good start. I assume always that if someone doesn’t know, that they will consult with someone who does know, so escalation to a Doctor was always a possibility.

This morning at 10:24 I telephoned the Bonavista Hospital for an appointment. You should know that the Bonavista Hospital is a mess. In 2021 I spent nine months trying to get blood tests front-and-back of prescriptive medicine. As I was getting dressed for the second blood test, the hospital rang to tell me that “our computer is down so we can’t take blood for testing”, and with that I closed down my relationship with my GP and the Hospital in general.

See also these articles . Medical services were a mess before I vacationed here in 2018 and they have just got worse and worse. A supposed $500,000 solution is only a Band-Aid (as we say in the trade). We get to pay two doctors a singing bonus of $200,000 and after two years they are free to go work somewhere else, having paid off their student loans, and the residents of Bonavista are back where they started, with no long-term relationship with a doctor.

So it was at 10:24 I telephoned the Bonavista hospital who told me I could make an appointment to see THE nurse practitioner, but the appointment would be in August or later. Today is April. We have a four-month wait to see a Nurse Practioner . So we agreed that I would limp to the Hospital Emergency and take my chances. I got halfway down my driveway and decided that bicycling would put less stress on my toes, so bicycled down there.

On my bike I followed the signs leading to “Emergency” and found the door locked. Apparently if you want to go to Emergency you should just walk in the main doors and NOT follow the signs to Emergency. A nice lady let me in and effectively walked me to the front door. OK. Where at the reception window another nice lady remembered my phone call and asked if I were allergic or diabetic (neither, thanks)

By 11:00 I was sitting in the waiting room for fifteen minutes then called into a room with two young ladies, the one on the right asking the usual questions (date of birth, are you allergic, are you diabetic, ...) while the one on the left interrupted the one on my right to ask “Are you in pain”, then “Are you allergic” and “Are you diabetic”, and for good measure ‘I’m going to take your blood pressure”.

Nothing gets my blood pressure up as much as ridiculous procedures. It’s not as if we are pressed for time here. Let Righty ask the personal questions, then let Lefty ask the personal questions with a sphygmomanometer and a thermometer.

If you feel like a break: checkout doctors in Bonavista Newfoundland . The only one I recognized is the one I went to after I arrived here four years ago and dropped after my first visit. “We don’t got no good doctors ‘ere” as we say in Bonavista.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... Just after noon, another nice lady called my name and took me back to her room. This was my Doctor. Very strange. I can see a doctor within two hours of phoning the hospital, but must wait four months for a nurse practitioner.

If you want to know the results: My BP is too high at 174/101, but I believe I know why that is. Nonetheless I shall drag out my blood cuff, find some batteries, and start taking BP again. The last time I took it at home was four years ago (2019/4/27) when it read 134/65 and I like to think that I more relaxed after four years in Bonavista.

I get 40 pills, 10 days at 4 pills per day, and once the inflammation and pain is gone away (we hope) back to get the toenail extracted on May 1st, 2nd, 12th, 13th or 14th. I hope that they have lots of phials of local anesthetic at the Bonavista hospital.

I was out of there by 12:30, which was not bad. I’d go as far as to say it was Good.

To read my thoughts on The Half-a-Million Dollar Band-Aid, it is here .

Oh yes! The other good news: I can unpack that carton of coffee and tea etc.

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