International ME/CFS Awareness Day - May 12th 2015

Hello,

It was International ME/CFS Awareness Day on the 12th May and to mark the occasion and to 'do my bit', I gave an informal, awareness raising talk in a lecture theatre at the University of Portsmouth (Thank you for allowing me use of the facilities for a private venture - much appreciated). In the audience was a good mixture of ME sufferers, family and friends of sufferers and people who have no link to M.E. who just wanted to learn and appreciate how nasty this illness can be.

Foggy made an appearance on the night, between trips to Tenerife and the Philippines. He even had his own mini movie at the end!

I wanted to keep the talk as light and engaging as possible. Bamboozling the audience with medical jargon and politics wouldn't help to raise awareness - exactly the same method as I apply to the Foggy campaign.

Here is the film of the talk. Apologies for the intermittent sound problems....it was a learning curve.....don't do the moveable cardigan/long hair combo as it scratches the mic!! You can still hear what I am saying though. I am very proud of myself (pat on the back for me) for doing this. I haven't ever spoken in public to more than 15 people and this was a big personal ambition/achievement. Had major brain fog on the 12th May and so to be able to string a sentence together, let alone do a half an hour talk, was a huge relief!! 

https://youtu.be/CLRiImmWDxQ

Please watch the whole thing; I put a lot of time and energy into planning, designing slides and finding resources to put across my message about how dreadful this illness is.

My immense gratitude goes to three members of Team Foggy. To Andra for her I.T. prowess and help. Her skills and knowledge were invaluable, she made the slides more engaging with animation than they would have been if I was left to my own devices! (The animations aren't showing up on the video which is a shame but....they were there on the night! Promise!) She also helped on the night to make sure everything ran smoothly. Ant (Anthony) filmed the talk for me and did the post-talk video editing; and thanks go to Emma for taking great photo memories of the evening. These lovely people gave their time and skills for free; they just wanted to help me raise awareness. Thanks guys.

Love,

Sally xxx