Continuous healing...

I dread winter... it's not a very pleasant season for me. One of the side effects from chemo that I have lived with for the past few years is Raynaud's Phenomenon. I wrote about it here (with a picture of what happens to my extremities when it gets cold).

Basically if the temperature drops below 40 degrees my fingers and toes go numb and white and lose circulation. As they warm back up it becomes very painful, like a million little needles poking into my extremities. Then when they are warm... they start to itch, which freaks me out every time because itching is also a sign of the type of cancer that I had. Thus the cycle goes on every winter. It gets cold, I wear socks/gloves/slippers/fur lined boots for months to try and prevent this from occurring. It's annoying for sure, but honestly a small price to pay to have made it through cancer.

So this winter I got all prepared for it. I bought some more wool socks. I even got new gloves. I dug out my house slippers to wear so that my bare feet never touched the cold floor. And guess what?

It never happened...

I have not had this problem at all this winter. Not even once!

I can hardly believe it! I am seriously shocked that it hasn't happened this year. The only thing I can think of as to why it hasn't is that my body is still healing. I'm still healing from the effects of chemo. I'm still getting better. I'm so happy for continuous healing!!! Another possibility is that I've realized that I'm pretty deficient in some vitamins and minerals that I think happened during those sick months too. So I've been taking 2000 IU's of Vitamin D every day and have started Magnesium this winter. Maybe getting these vital nutrients back into my body is helping as well.

So the other day I did the ultimate test. I wore a pair of ballet flats all day long, even with snow on the ground. My toes still stayed rosy pink, something that hasn't happened in four years! I realize that this could be a fluke and maybe next winter it will be back, but I'm so enjoying this right now.

These bodies we have are pretty amazing you know... I'm grateful that mine is still healing and thriving.