It does Matamata

Post date: Mar 01, 2015 7:43:23 AM

So what are you seeing?

    1. Most of the group at Hobbiton (lots of the adults are taking photos - look closely you will see me in the second row

    2. One of the young peopkle with arthritis who act as team leaders for the smaller kids

    3. The parent workshop where parents learn how to inject their children

    4. One of our Arthritis Educators leading the children's activities

    5. A really nice educational psychologist taking a porent workshop

    6. What for many is the camp highlight - the hydroslide This image shows a father and three 5 year old girls in a "train"

We left camp around 1:15. Feeling totally relaxed until I checked the flight time - I thought 3pm for 3:30 but actually it was 2pm for 2:30. We had a 50 min drive and a degree of stress. . .

Luckly for us the flight was delayed for 10 mins so we got on!

Tony and I have come back from the camp for children with arthritis. This is the 5th consecutive year we have run this camp and every year I come away amazed at the resilience of some of the families. For many of the estimated 800 children with arthriits in NZ their condition is well managed and while painful and uncomfortable life goes on more or less normally with a few more doctors visits than the average family. At camp we seem to get some of the families whose experiences are at the other end of the spectrum - like the 6 year old girl who has had several operations on her eyes and has damage to her optic nerve as the eye inflammation that is a relatively uncommon side effect of arthritis has been worse than the arthritis itself. Adding some of the hundred or so photos