Day 16: What have you done to your hand?

Hola!

I haven't posted in a while, partly because there hasn't been much to report and partly because it has taken me four days to work out how to translate this site from Spanish to English. I am in Sotogrande on the south coast of Spain (20 mins from Gibraltar, 45 mins from Marbella) working as an au pair for an English family. The kids are fantastic: the 2-year-old has already told me he loves me and the 5-year-old has said he wants to marry me... if only men would fall at my feet this easily. However they would knacker any healthy person out, let alone someone like me with RA. But, as always, I am looking at this as a challenge and not something I can't do. 

I am still waking up with ridiculously painful hands and finger, so clearly the joint juice hasn't worked it's magic yet. For the first time in a while I am having to admit to myself that there are certain things I just can't do at the moment, such as the monkey bars at the water park today or doing a hand stand in the water for more than five seconds. Trivial things to most of you I'm sure but for me to have to say I can't do something is unbelievably frustrating, especially to an 8-year-old who doesn't understand what arthritis is (though naturally I have done my best to explain it to her - brainwash them from a young age and all that).

The parents - my employers - are aware that I have RA. Yet this morning when I came into the kitchen wearing a wrist splint the kids' dad still asked, "Oooh, what have you done to your hand?" Because obviously since I saw him last night I've had a chance to injure myself, seek treatment, and get hold of a splint. I realise this naivety isn't his fault though, people just don't understand what RA is. It's things like this that make me even more determined to help educate the world about arthritis.