The Code of the West

Although the Code of the West was unwritten, every cowboy knew what it was. The Ten Principles are Jim Owen's distillation of the timeless, universal cowboy values that are still relevant to our lives today. They are at the heart of cowboy ethics and of Jim's book, Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West.

1 Live each day with courage

2 Take pride in your work

3 Always finish what you start

4 Do what has to be done

5 Be tough, but fair

6 When you make a promise, keep it

7 Ride for the brand

8 Talk less and say more

9 Remember that some things aren't for sale

10 Know where to draw the line

Reynaud's Disease, My Cold Weather Companion

Definition

By Mayo Clinic staff

Raynaud's (ray-NOHZ) disease 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 disease, smaller arteries that supply blood to your skin narrow, limiting blood circulation to affected areas.

Women are more likely to have Raynaud's disease. It's also more common in people who live in colder climates.

Treatment of Raynaud's disease depends on its severity and whether you have any other health conditions.

So, there is the definition and correct pronunciation for the malady. The daily reality is often much more dramatic, more painful and limiting than that short excerpt presents. My own symptoms are worse than that, but not as bad as some sufferers experience. As I age, the symptoms appear more quickly at exposure to cold, become more pronounced, more difficult to reverse. While it has heretofore not been particularly painful, I am becoming more uncomfortable as winters pass.

Raynaud's disease is more than simply having cold hands and cold feet, and it's not the same as frostbite. Signs and symptoms of Raynaud's depend on the frequency, duration and severity of the blood vessel spasms that underlie the disorder. Raynaud's disease symptoms include:

• Cold fingers and toes
• Sequence of color changes in your skin in response to cold or stress
• Numb, prickly feeling or stinging pain upon warming or relief of stress

During an attack of Raynaud's, affected areas of your skin usually turn white at first. Then, the affected areas often turnblue, feel cold and numb, and your sense of touch is dulled. As circulation improves, the affected areas may turn red, throb, tingle or swell. The order of the changes of color isn't the same for all people, and not everyone experiences all three colors.

That's why it is sometimes called the red, white and blue disease. Sounds patriotic, doesn't it? Again, the symptoms can be trivialized and minimized. But, RD can be a precursor or complication to other conditions, such as Lupus Erythematosus not to mention a difficult medical issue to live with. And that numb prickly skin upon rewarming? Rewarming and the reperfusion of blood can be excruciating to experience.

Types of Raynaud's

There are two types of Raynaud's. It can either be:

• primary: when the condition develops by itself (this is the most common type)
• secondary: when it develops in association with another health condition

The causes of primary Raynaud’s are unclear. However 1 in 10 people with primary Raynaud’s will go on to develop a condition associated with secondary Raynaud’s such as lupus.

Most cases of secondary Raynaud’s are associated with conditions where the immune system goes wrong and starts attacking healthy tissue, such as:

• rheumatoid arthritis: when the immune system attacks the joints causing pain and swelling
• lupus: when the immune system attacks many different parts of the body causing a range of symptoms, such as tiredness, joint pain and skin rashes

Secondary Raynaud’s can cause a more severe restriction of blood supply so it does carry a higher risk of causing complications such as ulcers, scarring and in the most serious of cases of tissue death, which is known as gangrene.

Who gets Raynaud’s?

Raynaud’s disease is a common condition. It may affect as many as one in every nine women and 1 in every 12 men. (It is hard to be entirely sure as rates can differ widely from area to area depending on how cold the temperature is).

Primary Raynaud’s usually begins in your 20s or 30s. Secondary Raynaud’s can develop at any age depending on the underlying condition it is associated with.

I have primary Reynaud's Disease, having several occurrences of it in my 20's and 30's. Now, though, in my 50's, I have an occurrence every day in the winter where I live. Any weather below about 55 causes my hands and feet to turn white. I often have the vasospasms while I am in the house during really cold weather. It is always a blessing to spend time in warmer weather during the winter. I hope to do that every winter from now on. Become a snowbird instead of a white winter dove.

For more information on RD, contact: http://www.raynauds.org/

Content in blue above from The Mayo Clinic site:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/raynauds-disease/DS00433

Err-runs...

Me: Please go get the electrical cord for the hip cooling unit, its next to my side of the bed.

George, back from upstairs: Here ya go!

Me: That's to my Kindle.

George, back from upstairs: Here...

Me: That's to my laptop.

George, back from upstairs: THIS?

Me: That's to the cell phone...

George: well, god dammit...

Me: Its okay... Can I just have an ice pack from the freezer?

Hip, Hip, Hooray...Not!

I'm trying to bring crutches into the world of Haute couture... one gimpy slap step at a time...(sigh)

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I have been on walking aids recently, first a walker, then crutches. I have been off my horses,too. I am not happy about that. I haven't even been able to longe or play with them for fear of injuring myself further.

Three years ago, thinking I was in my twenties, not my fifties, I overdid the leg presses at the gym. The result was soreness that turned into tendonitis which turned into bursitis of the hip. Chronic, painful, sleep disturbing, radiating-to-my-foot bursitis. I couldn't even lay on my affected side or wear snug pants.

So-called conservative therapies either didn't help at all or helped only a little. Those included massage therapy, warm water movement, iontophoresis, electric stimulation, and injections of corticosteroids at the site.

Finally, my orthopedic surgeon recommended a procedure to remove the bursa, a surgery that is only done by a couple doctors, and those in a city over a hundred miles away. After a ton of research, I agreed. Last week, I had the surgery, and now I am on crutches and off my horses.

I am not a languishing sort of person, not one to enjoy this interlude drooping and clickety-clack staggering from bed to couch. I am ready to be all done with this.

Lesson: when it comes to weight training at my age: less is more...

Learning

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An eastern teaching says 'When the learner is ready, the teacher will appear'. That doesn't mean a miraculous appearance, but a readiness to learn. Lessons are all around us every day. When the soil of our mind and heart is ready, the seed of learning can sprout. I struggle with 'keeping myself ready to learn the lesson', open enough to take it in and apply it to my life.

New Life, for Some

My husband is 'semi-retired' now. Meaning he hunts and fishes for four to six weeks at a time, then returns to a regular work schedule when he is home, usually 8-5. Hmmm.

This is not working for me. I am alone during the dark autumn evenings when he travels, and have him around for dirtying the kitchen and going to bed early for work when he is home.

It's not like I can have a network of friends to spend time with and then abandon when he decides to be home, or just go and do my own thing whether he is here or not. I am alone, in the worst way, except if he was dead, I mean.

I am not a solitary person. I really like conversation, cooking and visiting with someone everyday. But, suddenly, since June, I have been alone more than I have been a part of a couple. I don't think I like this...

Clean Up On Aisle Life!

I feel like I should be a character in the children's book 'Everybody Poops'. I would be the clean up person, the poop scooper, the carpet cleaner, the gagging glove-clad follower of the parade...

No such character exists, of course, but it should. And, it would be me.

My grandpugs are visiting. One of them, the youngest, has had some, uhmm, gastric upset lately. I'm talking the visible foggy paint peeling gas and copious amounts of semi-soft crap all over the house. I bought new carpet when we moved into this place, and I have tried to limit the exposure to nasties and toxins.

Suddenly, though, it is as if I live in a land mine area full of unusual smells and scary tarry piles.

I am thinking of diapers...