"... may return more often than a badly digested onion ring."

I am sorry to say that my walking will have to be put on hold for a bit due to a seriously annoying condition known as gout. This, I have discovered, has been passed on from my mother. And there was me thinking all I got was long eye lashes and a rare blood-group.

Gout is an off-shoot of arthritis which causes inflammation in the joints. It causes pain (which is severe and excruciating, believe me. I have been there and back, and hope I wont go there again) and swelling, usually in the big toe. Thing is it can affect any joint, but for me it is the big toe.

If you ever suffer any of these symptoms you may have gout and should see you doctor:

• severe pain in your joint (can be any joint, don't just go by my example)
• swelling and warmth around your joint (it feels like some one has peeled your skin off and then dipped the raw meat that was formally your foot into burning hot sand. Honestly, it's that bad)
• red and shiny skin around your joint (your joint swells up to the size of one of Shrek's limbs)
• mild fever (a sort of cold sweaty feeling is more the mark)
• firm, white lumps beneath your skin - these are urate crystals called tophi

I was not pleased to learn some of the facts about gout. It seems I can have a have gout attack for up to two weeks! Two feckin weeks! You have got to be kidding me? Almost 4 hours was bad enough. Apparently if you leave it alone, it will go away. After two weeks I would be prepared to kill.

With treatment, it can go away in less than a week. An attack of gout might only happen once in a lifetime, but it might not, and may return more often than a badly digested onion ring.

I am now on tablets to reduce the swelling and the monumental pain, soon I hope to return to what I joking refer to as normal. Maybe tomorrow my foot will be able to once again fit into a shoe and I will be able to walk like an adult human being and not a zombie from The Walking Dead.