My Phenomenon ... and not the John Travolta kind

Wanna hear a story? I've got one for ya.

Over the last year and a half or so the weirdest thing kept happening. It was mostly on the nights I would stop by the store on my way home from the gym. The carts at the store were outside, so in the winter they'd be pretty cold. I'd grab my cart and start roaming the store with my shopping list. Within about 10 minutes I'd notice that my fingers felt funny, kind of numb. Then I'd notice that they were losing their color. But not all of them - only a few random ones. And sometimes the colorlessness would only affect one side of a finger. I'd hurry through the rest of my grocery list and rush home to warm up. It usually took about 10 minutes hunched over a stove burner on medium heat and then I was back to normal.

Fast forward to the last couple of months. It was still happening. At the store. After my outside runs. Often on my toes as well. Just randomly when I'd get cold. A minor inconvenience, right? Well sure, but I was also beginning to worry that one of these times my fingers would never warm up. That one might just give up and die - falling off my hand and never coming back to me. Dramatic? You try staring at your deathly pale fingers and not become a bit concerned. So one night I took some photos and texted them to my parents. It was half "Hey look what I can do!" and half "Uhhhh ... I'm worried I'm a freak" kind of a text.

Exhibit A on my poor birdie finger:

And Exhibit B on my innocent little pinky finger:

And because my parents are internet wizards, by the next morning they had found my problem: Raynaud's Syndrome. Or as some on the web call it, Raynaud's Phenomenon. Using the word phenomenon makes it sound a lot more mysterious than it actually is, so let's go with that. Turns out only about 5% of the US population has Raynaud's so maybe my mom was right about that "special" thing! Here's one definition:

Raynaud's (ray-NOHZ) Phenomenon is a condition that causes some areas of your body — such as your fingers, toes, the tip of your nose and your ears — to feel numb and cool in response to cold temperatures or stress. In Raynaud's Phenomenon, smaller arteries that supply blood to your skin narrow, limiting blood circulation to affected areas. As a result, the skin may turn white and then blue for a short time. As blood flow returns, the affected areas may turn red and throb, tingle, burn, or feel numb.

It's basically something that can be a problem in extreme cases, but is more of an irritation for the majority of people. Nothing was said about fingers falling off, but there was talk of "skin sores or gangrene from prolonged or repeated attacks" in extreme cases. GANGRENE, PEOPLE. Decay of body tissues. I'm am NOT on board with that. And I'm not saying to click on these links, but I don't want this, or this, and definitely not this.

I'll eventually go see a doctor just to rule out the other things associated with Raynaud's, but in the meantime does anyone want to buy me a lifetime supply of hand and toe warmers? You'd be saving me from gangrene. Cause nobody likes the awkward gangrene girl.