By: thefamousjacob.com on November 4th, 2025
The gout backstory
I was only fourteen years old when I was diagnosed with gout. Just before high school I went from being a healthy and active kid who was on the cross-country running team to having a gout attack once a month. When I was 26 in 2012, I was lonely and decided to take a chance on a dude in Cambridge Mass while I was living in Idaho. Like a silly fool, I fell in love and moved. In hindsight, I would do Cambridge all over again, just subtract the ex!
Comfy and cozy in Cambridge
I was three months into living in Cambridge Mass, and I was loving the location. I was close to MIT and Harvard. Going on the green line was an adventure all amongst itself. The bars were nice, and the atmosphere was electric. Our “honeymoon” ended just four months in when we got the news that we had to move to Virginia. Ultimately, I was in charge of moving our whole lives into boxes without his help.
The move from Hell!
My ex jetted off to Virginia for work and left me all alone in the hundred-year-old apartment by myself. I did my best to pack away all the unbreakable items into the few boxes I had at my disposal. The next task was to navigate putting my exes’ personal belongings in his luggage and storage tubs.
The moving day came, and I already noticed my body was swelling up exponentially. Looking back, I remembered that I could barely walk or bend over due to my intense gout attacks.
I worked my butt off, but I was proud of myself. I was on the verge of total exhaustion. My hands could barely hold a broom. Adding insult to injury, there was nowhere to sit other than the toilet. In the end all I had was my air mattress, phone and a will to sleep. Did I mention I had no medicine? Yes, you read that right! No Indomethacin, Allopurinol or any hope for swelling reduction relief at all.
The worst night of my life with my gout
Around 9 at night I called it quit after cleaning and packing all day. First thing I did before heading to bed was to get some water and place it by the air mattress. Second thing to accomplish was to blow up the air mattress. Luckily the air mattress had a fan attached. Third task was to get on said air mattress and hope it didn’t deflate during the night.
The getting down on the air mattress was hard. My whole body was suffering one massive gout attack. I couldn’t easily use my hands to lower my butt to the ground because they were like baseball gloves. My next resort was to try using my elbows and then hope that I would land on the air mattress gracefully. Spoiler alert, I didn’t. My body came crashing down with a loud thud and an even louder shriek of pain. I set my alarm clock for 6 AM the next morning.
It all came crashing down
Literally. Halfway into the night, I could feel my body dipping lower into the air mattress. Imagine being in a full state of intense pain and there was no heating in the apartment along with no blankets, so I was shivering. My butt touched the ground and I knew I was in danger. I could hear Whoopi now, “MOLLY, YOU IN DANGER GURL!”
Needless to say, by around 2-3 AM I was on the ground due to my air mattress giving out on me. I had no pillow, blanket and now with no firm foundation under me except for a very hard wooden floor that had to be over a hundred years old. Ultimately, I just succumbed to the total exhaustion and reality of the situation and passed out in a total deep sleep.
The Get Up
My alarm clock on my phone goes off around 6 AM and I had agreed with the landlord that I would have the apartment totally cleaned by 8 AM. Was that wishful thinking from the prior day? Absolutely! First thing I did was drink my undisturbed water. Just like any other day of waking up in the morning I had the overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom to empty out my bladder. There was just one problem though. I couldn’t use my arms and had little use of my knees and ankles.
I started to panic. Do I call for 911 and have them help me off the floor? NO! I had to do this on my own. I managed to go from my back and unto my butt, so I was sitting straight up. Then I had to rock my body to see if I could get some sort of forward momentum going. Needless to say, I was unsuccessful. The tears were streaming down my face. Then the worst thing happened. My phone died.
I was staring into the abyss which was my empty apartment thinking how did I put myself into this predicament? Easy to answer, I was desperate for change. I exchanged a cozy life in Idaho where I had health insurance and went to a life in Cambridge all for some dude.
Desperate times calls for desperate measures
I bit the bullet, and I had to army crawl my dead weight body to the corner of the living room. From there I used all my might to push myself unto my butt. Next step was to try to get up on my feet by arching my back and doing some aerial acrobatics stunt work and eventually I was on my feet.
In my mind I was sprinting for the bathroom, but in reality, I was moving at a snail’s pace. By the grace of God, I made it and relieved myself. Shortly after I flushed the toilet and pulled down the top of the seat and sat my fat ass on the porcelain throne and cried.
To my surprise the landlord came into the apartment around eight in the morning and I was still sitting on the toilet. She was kind. She had only met me a few times prior to that day, but she never knew that I had gout and that I was in a really bad place that night. Empathy was surely her strong suit.
The landlord was able to finish the one last room I couldn’t mop the night prior and help me down the three flights of stairs. Without my landlord’s help, I wouldn’t have caught my Uber and made it out of Cambridge.
What happened next?
Well, I got into the Uber, and we drove an hour outside of Cambridge to a hotel I would stay at for 2 weeks.
My parents were able to get me emergency Indomethacin and I was back on my feet within a few days. By the end of the two weeks, I had to call it quits with my ex and by the end of the week I was on a flight back to Idaho.
What are the lessons that I learned?
First lesson I learned back in 2012 was that the grass is never greener on the other side of the US. Whatever loneliness issues you had in one place might and probably will follow you to the other place.
Second lesson I learned is that it is never good to leave a comfortable situation WITHOUT your medicine or health insurance. I left Idaho without more than 30 days of Allopurinol and Indomethacin and when it ran out, my gout attacks were STRONG.
And the final lesson I learned from this night in Cambridge is that you should NEVER put yourself in a situation where you are fully alone and without any help if you have uncontrollable gout. My body was in a complete gout attack, and I was down for the count. If it wasn’t for my inner strength to get up and for that landlord, things could have been worse. I will always have my medication.
Be sure to read my previous blog post here! Allopurinol Verus Uloric – thefamousjacob.com
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