Not AGAIN?!?

Friday night/Saturday morning, a little after midnight, I get awakened by a light in the kitchen, a mere 8 feet from my face. Since my husband was no longer asleep next to me I assumed he went there to fetch a glass of water. Then I heard talking - our son, whose bedroom abuts the kitchen, has joined him in conversation. The voices start to sound a little frantic (I'm partially deaf and can't make out what's being said, just the tone of the words) so I jump up and head into the room, and the first thing I see is my son rifling through the pile of papers on my side of the table.

What's wrong?

My husband then tells me his gout is acting up again and he's looking for the written prescription for the colchicine so he can get it filled as soon as the pharmacy opens in the morning.

I tell my son to go back to bed, walk into the bathroom, open the drawer in a storage box in the bathroom closet, pull out a bottle of colchicine, toss it at my husband, and head back to bed. He forgot we got the prescription for the bottle filled the same day he got it 2 weeks ago, the same day his gout started up the last time and he started taking the pills from the last refill on the old prescription. The doc had said to fill it ASAP and to have a full round (only 12 pills) on hand at all times for these flare-ups, because the sooner he starts treating it, the less pain and swelling the flare will be.

He took his pill and crawled sheepishly back to bed. By the time he got in I had already gotten the extra pillow down to the bottom of the bed so he could elevate that foot, fixed his covers so he could easily slip back into bed and cover all but that foot up again, and started making a mental list of everything he had eaten that day and tried to identify the one food item that broke the camel's back and started the flare again. He kept moaning and groaning, tossing and turning in his sleep that it kept me awake until after 3 am and around 5am one of his snores woke me again so I just stayed up after that. Oh, that wasn't gout related - he does that most nights, even before his CABG. It's just a thing he does. He also talks in his sleep now and then.

I made the mistake once again of believing Dr. McDougall instead of Dr. Fuhrman and fed him vegetable products that are not high but moderate in purines. Dr. McD feels that vegetable sources are benign, whereas Dr. Fuhrman says to avoid them, at least for a while during and after a flare-up. While he didn't have any spinach or mushrooms, he did have plenty of beans the past few days in the shape of bean burgers, hummus and tofu. He had broccoli as well as that tofu cheese in the lasagna. He had split peas in soup. He had artichokes on his pizza. He had roasted Brussels Sprouts, which is on some lists of foods to avoid, other lists of foods to eat during a flare. He eats bread daily. If I go back through my menus or his night time snacks for the past 2 weeks I'm sure I'll find he ate something every single day that some sites say to avoid if you have gout. 

It all has to stop. He can't go on having a flare a week after his last one finished. He has to start eating an entirely different way. He can't take sandwiches of seitan in to work - he has to start taking in containers of safe foods because the yeast in the bread may be a trigger. He can't say, "I ate this before with no problem," and think he can get away with it. He can't fall back on familiar, comfortable foods and think he's immune from their effects.

I know this is all so hard on the guy. He had to change once already this year because of the CABG and his cardiovascular disease. Now the foods that are protecting his heart are killing his joints and he has to change all over again. 

I now have to go through all my menus and eliminate all the recipes that include all known gout trigger foods, and believe me, there are a LOT of them in the vegetable kingdom. I have to scour all my cookbooks and recipe files, whether they're McDougall, Fuhrman, Voisin, Moskowitz, or just a forum member, and find some that I can make that he can eat with enjoyment and satiation. I have to find something he'll actually want to take to work to eat. And I have to keep it all heart-healthy, too, so those nut-filled sauces and salad dressings on otherwise veggie-filled E2L recipes are out, also. HELP!

I'll finish off the rest of the batch of bean burgers I made the other day. I already froze all the chickpea cutlets and will work on those as time goes on, too. The pea soup has also been packed away for my future lunches, 2-cup servings poured into quart-sized freezer bags, frozen flat, then the quart bags put into a 2-gallon bag so they're all together. I left one serving unfrozen that I had for yesterday's lunch with the burger. 

Tonight I'll be making Potatohead's SNAP recipe from the McDougall forums - all safe ingredients and leftovers should cover another dinner or a few lunches. That's about as far as I got in planning so far. At least he's going to be home all week so lunches will be easy enough to do with those leftovers or various soup recipes. I have a recipe in mind for tomorrow's dinner from the McDougall Q&E Cookbook. If I do make it I'll be back with the recipe and photo. I have to double and triple check it to make sure it's gout-safe and that I have all the ingredients necessary for it. Then I just have the rest of the week to worry about.