Rosie's Raynaud's.

Rosie doesn't have much to write about today. I had another smoothie for breakfast and Mr. Hawthorne fried some oysters for lunch, but you've all seen that. I made cole slaw, remoulade sauce, and tartar sauce. No biggie. So I'll talk about my poor hands. After watching my video, I meant to say that the constricted blood supply turned the fingers white, and the decreased oxygen from the diminished blood flow caused the blueness. I believe I got it backwards, but I tend to mumble and freeze and my brain goes to mush when on camera.

This is the face, or rather the hand, of Raynaud's. And, believe me, this is extremely mild for me.

Daughter Hawthorne gave me this nifty little gadget. I've already broken the metal disk inside to cause the chemical reaction that makes the little packet heat up. The neat thing is, it's reusable. To restore the heating pad, you wrap it up in a towel, and put in boiling water for 10 minutes and it's all clear again and ready to use. You see, Rosie has Raynaud's Syndrome. Or is it a disease? Or a phenomenon? Well, what Raynaud's is is a circulatory disorder. Blood vessels spasm, then the affected areas (in my case, my fingers) turn white and numb, due to constricted blood flow. Sometimes they turn blue, because of lack of oxygen. And then they finally flush back up and turn red as blood goes back through. Basically, people with Raynaud's have an exaggerated reaction to a normal response. When your body is exposed to cold temperatures, your extremities will lose heat. This is normal, since the body slows down blood supply to your fingers and toes to preserve the body's core temperature. The body specifically reduces blood flow by narrowing the small arteries of your extremities. With Raynaud's, the arteries go into vasospasm, which dramatically constricts the vessels and temporarily limits blood supply. It's caused by the body overreacting to cold temperatures or even stress. As I have absolutely no stress in my life, my Raynaud's symptoms are caused by cold temperatures. Going into a grocery store will do it because those places are cold. In the winter time, if the house is cool, which it always is, that will bring it on. The rest of my body is fine with the thermostat set at 63. Just not my fingers. Also, if I reach in the fridge to bring out a head of lettuce or cabbage, that will do it. Sometimes I'll put my hand under warm water to get the blood flow going. And I know. I know. It's cutting edge videography like this that keeps you all knocking down the doors to my blog - watching blood flow go back into my fingers.