A week without the use of a foot has passed me by, in which I have hopped about on the good one, rolled myself around the house in a computer desk chair on wheels, and gotten lots of practice using a wooden cane to keep the weight off this ugly, swollen appendage. Yesterday the pain broke up enough that I was able to slowly walk about the house with no assistance, and today I am perhaps a few points higher on the scale of healing.

The doctor put me on anti-gout and anti-inflammatory medicines, so I have been sitting with my feet propped in the air and eagerly watching for any indication that they might take effect. When I went to her office for a second visit she was surprised to see that I was still hobbling with a cane. I suppose she thought her magic potions, Meloxicam and Allopurinol, would immediately clear up the gout. The healing may have been sped up some by the meds, but the pain has only very slowly left me.

I believe I have what Eckhart Tolle describes as a pain-body in the book I have been reading. Just the thought of the pain has turned into an invisible but discernible entity living inside of my mind, a fresh memory, that suddenly comes rushing to the front of my awareness, and clouds my sense of the world. For a moment the fresh memory takes control of my disposition and overlays it with a feeling of paralyzing agony and helplessness, the same sensations I felt during the height of my gout attack. Even though the gout is now nearly gone, and the causes of it almost vanquished, the fresh memory of the recent pain still bubbles inside of me. Each step I have taken for the last day or so has been an exercise in learning to trust and believe that the pain will no longer occur.

I would like for my mind to be free of these razor-sharp memories so that I can function again. Another day or two of walking and building new confidence in my ability to step about without pain will surely rewire my mind so that it no longer summons forth the pain-body. But it leaves me to wonder what else inside of me, what other deeper memories live quietly inside of me, that my mind has learned to put to sleep to quell the discomfort.

I have read that people often are controlled by hidden or sleeping pain that will surface without their permission, and change their mood, disposition, or behavior. I know some of that happens to me. A dream will bring up an old and forgotten pain in my heart or mind, and make it seem like it is real and pressing me for immediate response. Even in my daily conscious living, sometimes painful events from years ago that I have forgotten will suddenly come to life and shout disturbing thoughts at me. I often rely on my favorite inspirational or meditative literature as a protective armor to fill my mind with powerful thoughts, so that when painful thoughts come up to the surface from my inner depths, I have the tools I need to fight back.

The gout of this past couple of weeks challenged my main line of defense against chaos and pain. I felt a demand being placed on me to find or improve my inner strength. The wisdom and knowledge tools I've acquired over the years were temporarily knocked down and rendered useless. My inner peace felt shattered. Even my old stoic attitude did not work, the one that tells me to stand brave and resist all.

I have relearned something about myself in the midst of this recent suffering. I sat in my flip-back chair with my foot in the air the other night, hoping the foot would stop throbbing, while I watched images on television of the most recent war tragedies in Syria. People were mulling around the streets with bandaged or missing legs. I could see in their faces that they were feeling an intense pain and anguish. My little bit of knowing about pain caused me to identify and sympathize with them rather than feel indifferent. Compassion, a sharing of suffering, can be a difficult feeling to acquire.