I have been umm-ing and ah-ing over my vlog for this week. I want to do something to raise awareness, but I don’t want to be too negative about the condition. It is difficult to raise awareness, though, if you sugar coat everything – and that’s exactly what I (generally) do. I started scripting it yesterday evening, and got my wife to read my opening paragraphs. She felt that I was being too negative, so I really need to change the slant of things a little.
I sit down when I get back from the morning dog walk, and research Parkinson’s Awareness Week a little more to see if I can get some inspiration. The Parkinson’s UK website wants people to raise awareness by making videos telling people what a cure for Parkinson’s would mean to them, so I decide to include that idea in my vlog. I finish the script and set up the camera and tripod in the lounge. It takes me a good few takes until I have something that I’m (relatively) happy with – my voice is playing up again, strangling my sentences and disappearing on a number of occasions. I manage to get it loaded onto my MacBook, edited and uploading to my YouTube channel by the time my wife gets home from work. She thinks I made a depressing vlog, and I think I just told it the way it is – but she is probably right!
We go to Stalham this evening to see my mother, armed with a bottle of advocaat, a huge box of chocolates and some tulips – it’s her 83rd birthday today. Her Parkinson’s is being kind to her on her birthday – she is having a much better day than we we last visited her.