The Disease of Kings

So, what the fuck is gout anyway?
Gout is what happens when your body wants to punish you for eating and drinking like you're rich.  The amount you eat isn't so much the problem as the style.  I'll elaborate.  It all starts with purines.  Purines are a major part of our body chemistry, dna, rna, etc...and are released into the blood after a cell is damaged or dies.  Our bodies know about this already and have a metabolic cycle to get rid of the purines with uric acid as a byproduct.  That's smart, but here's where we humans get thrown what I call a nature curve.  I'll be using the term "nature curve" in future blogs, so I'll define it here.

Nature curve- when nature for no good goddamn reason decides a human being needs to be more complicated and/or less robust and capable than just about every other known organism.

The nature curve here is the fact that we humans have no enzyme to get rid of uric acid.  Just about every other animal has an enzyme but not us.  A virtually fail-safe way to get rid of this unavoidable and possibly dangerous pile of biological waste?  No, that would be too fucking close to right.  Instead we are told to rely on our kidneys to flush out the excess uric acid which amounts to about 2-6 miligrams.  This works fine...except when it doesn't.  You see, uric acid metabolism is a relatively slow process, so the animals we eat tend have higher levels of uric acid in their muscles and inner-organs.  When we eat these muscles and organs, especially the more delicious ones like liver, we tend to get extra uric acid.  Alcohol, pate, fresh sushi, shellfish, and host of other deliciously decadent treats can all result in excess uric acid.  We can also just produce more uric acid on our own or end up with more if our kidney's crap out.  The point is we get more uric acid in our blood than we our able to piss out.  The uric acid doesn't just float through the blood endlessly.  Eventually it collects in our joints and forms a kind of crust.  This is a problem but a completely unnoticeable problem.  Uric acid crystals are shaped like spears but are too small to harm us directly; however, they are just big enough and foreign enough to trigger an immune response.

The immune response is simple and direct, attack with everything you got.  White blood cells mobilize, your temperature can rise, the area around the crystals swells,...the typical immune all-out-blitz of overwhelming force.  This is of course completely useless in remove uric acid.  Uric acid isn't a virus, bacteria, or unnatural foreign agent; so it honestly doesn't give two shits about your immune response.  But this is when you notice you have a problem, because the inflammation this immune response causes triggers the pain.  Oh God, the PAIN.  So gout isn't really a disease at all.  It's the result of immune response, and as far as autoimmune diseases go it's pretty low on the disaster-meter.  However, it does cause inflammation, possible kidney damage, and a crippling pain that borders on the limits of human endurance.

How bad is the pain?
Bad enough to warrant it's own blog post, so for now I'll just say that it is considered the most painful form of arthritis by those who know.

So now you know what gout is, which is good, because the next blog will detail exactly when, how, and why this blog became "The Gout Letters".  Spoilers: It starts in Virginia...I've said too much.

Surgeons can be funny

I have two really important blog posts that I have to write soon, but The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim won't let me live my life, play the game, and do full blog posts.  Something has to give, and since the blog is the latest comer to the stage, it shall wait.  Not to worry, though; I will satiate your thirst for musings with the following very partial list: Things you don't want to hear your surgeon say right before you go under anesthesia.  Picture it: You are naked and IV'ed in the operating room.  The anesthesiologist has placed a mask over your face and told you to breath normally.   Your doctor is gloved and waiting for you to pass out, and just before you do, he/she looks down and says:

"Let's play a game..."

"You know, sometimes in surgery the anesthesia doesn't work but the paralytic does.  The patient wakes up in the middle but can't move or talk.  It's happened to my patients here 12 times, but I'm sure you'll be fine."

"I'm going to be doing this lefty today.  I have a golf tournament this weekend and don't want to take the chance of straining my right wrist."

"See this hat?  It's my cuttin hat.  I cuts the people in this hat."

"You look like a person who would enjoy having a few extra holes here'n'there."

"Dude, I just saw 'The Human Centipede'.  It was AWESOME!!"

"I'm sorry about this, but Jose is giving 20grand for livers now.  I'd be a fool to pass that up!"

"It's good thing this was scheduled today.  If it had been last night, I would be trying to do this while tripping balls on LSD.  Let's get started Elmo; we have to pull Kermit out of this rabbit hole!"

"My name is Inigo Montoya..."

The Intro

Good day, peoples of the world.  I'm making a blog out of self-interest.  Recently, I've been beset by a myriad of health troubles, all of which I'll get into later, that can for the most part all be traced back to stress.  I'm a son, brother, husband, father, and university employed physicist, so it stands to reason that my life is in effect a small sample study in stress.  To help alleviate some of the internal pressure, I've decided to spew my more pressing musing into the void of the internet.  Hopefully, I'll deal with my demons in this manner BEFORE they deal with me.  I'm actually pretty excited at the prospect of seeing some of personal madness in text type on a website; I feel the thrill of the vandal as he tags a subway car.  But before I begin my catharsis at your, the wider world, expense a few ground rules.  Well, that's not really accurate.  These aren't rules per se, as I will obey none.  These are really just facts about me and this blog that will directly effect your decision to keep reading or not.  These facts will not bend or break as rules are prone to do.

Fact 1: I'm not writing this for you to read
In fact, I don't expect anyone to read this at all.  This will be a small collection of what I consider my most important thoughts at the time, and as such, probably wont be of much interest to anyone else.  However, I am well-read and interested in a plethora of topics; so there is a chance, miniscule mind you, that I will touch upon subjects you feel something toward.  If this improbability occurs, feel free to voice your opinion in comments.  I will not censor, edit, or erase anything but the most abhorrent of content, and as I have in fact been apart of the twisted confluence of tubes and offal that is the World Wide Web since it's very inception, offending me personally is difficult in the extreme.  I will post links to the blog on Twitter out of shear conceit, but this is not be construed as an endorsement of the blog itself.  I will stand by what I say here, but I admit now and forever, this shit aint for everybody.  I won't have a regular posting schedule as I will be relying on inspiration to guide my steps.  No, I don't really believe in a muse of some such, but I do acknowledge...

Fact 2: There is a God.
This is not a statement of religious belief, but instead a fact that I've come to except as true through the process of careful consideration of the pertinent data.  As a physicist I have an innate need to measure everything, and the current measurements taken in their entirety lead to the existence of God as an inevitable conclusion.  I've  talked to many PhD scientists of every discipline, belief, and level of persuasion and none has ever been able to manage a true challenge to the thesis statement and reasoning.  What is that reasoning?  That is beyond the scope of this post, but I will reveal my all in due course.  I know many out there are of the opposite mindset and think you have it all figured out.  You will find no judgement here.  I don't think you are wrong out of hand, and in fact, there is a equally likely scenario that ends at the opposite conclusion.  However, it requires a leap-of-faith in the middle portion that my logic as a scientist won't allow me to cross, hence I reject it.  Again, this is not my religion.  I do not in this theory propose that God is good, loving, caring, insightful, omnipotent, or aware of the pitiful unidirectional beings that worship it and call it God.  I've only proved the exist of God beyond my doubt due to data analysis; all the rest is a matter of faith.  And speaking of...

Fact 3: I'm a Christian
This is my religion.  This is what I believe in faithful heart sans interference with any logic or proof.  My denomination is known only to me and is unimportant.  What is important is what this says about my view of the world.  I believe we are charged by the forces of creation with the task of helping and loving one another in good times and bad.  I believe that if we stick together not only can we overcome all obstacles; we can actually advance to a state beyond ourselves and our most fevered imaginings of what a heaven could be.  This belief I find is an oddly powerful one in my life.  Particularly in light of...

Fact 4: I don't like people.
Don't get me wrong I like people as an abstract, but not so much as a reality in my work life, entertainment, or traffic.  Perhaps it is due to the bruises I suffered in my early experiences on the internet, but I just find people to be loud, self-absorbed, and inconsiderate most days.  Coupled with the fact that I spent many formative summers in customer service and as a paid worker on various political campaigns, and I think I've lived the formula for developed misanthropy.

Well that does it.  This is a small taste of what  you are in for if you choose to except the price of admission.  I'll do the driving; you do the riding.  Keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times.  That last part isn't a metaphor or suggestion; you could lose a fucking arm here.