It would serve me right (I know Aaron would say) for eating so much butter and lamb and bacon, and generally living like the very royalty that used to contract this ailment regularly.

See, I woke up yesterday with an excruciating pain in my foot. By the afternoon, it felt like I’d broken a toe. But, for once, I hadn’t drunk a whole lot the night before–certainly not enough to forget about dropping a couch on it, which is what it felt like. Now today, my whole last week of low appetite culminated in inexplicable barfing. (No, I’m not pregnant. I mean…er, I can’t be. I swear. Jesus. That would be awful.)

So, based on one wiseass comment from a fellow copy editor at Us Weekly last night, I spent the afternoon (before I really started throwing up) researching the symptoms and causes of gout. Aside from the part about it 99 percent of the time happening only to post-menopausal women, it all matches up. Even the queasiness and low appetite.

But gout, even though it’s unfashionable and weird and happens mostly to British people, is far better than my previous diagnosis, of cancer. This was based solely on the fact that I met a woman this weekend who, when she was 12, got this strange swelling in her leg then started throwing up, and the next thing she knew, they were digging a football-size tumor out of her thigh.

Gout, if it really happens to be true, at least is thematic with my life, and will give me plenty to write about. I will certainly have to invest in some fuddy-duddy cardigan sweater and a fancy cane, the better to hobble around with while I ogle buttery treats that I shouldn’t eat.

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning. Don’t root for gout. I mean, root for not-gout, just something benign that doesn’t require that I stop eating the way I do.