For the past five years of having Rheumatoid Arthritis, I was part of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Support group, but today I lost my control and decided it was no longer supportive.  When I had first joined Daily Strength, we were a tight-knit group.  We had a lot of fun and varied conversations.  Over the years, the players have changed and thus, the conversations have changed.  Many of my best of friends in that group have left for all sorts of reasons and so my time has finally come that I can no longer go there, hoping for the support I once had.  I still have groups that I started, one being, an alternative health group… and so from time to time, I will check in on that, but the main board, I am no longer a member of.  Today I realized, when a person brought up an old inflammatory thread of last year that this group, because of its players, was no longer for me.  I simply was no longer gaining strength but rather feeling stress from visiting.  I’ve learned to take a look at what’s working and what isn’t, from food to people, I do what’s best for me.  I hope you can also do the same.  Thank you for being my support.  Many hugs and thanks, Sarah.

One morning I was running late for work, per usual.  My gas gauge was noticeably low, but I didn’t stop for gas, knowing that stopping would add to my tardiness.  I guess you can say I like to live on the edge, or maybe it’s a genetic thing.

See, growing up, my father was notorious for letting his car run out of gas–while his kids were still in it.  It was so bad in fact, that there was this one spot on the road that we knew if we got past it, we were somehow in the clear.  We knew the spot well because we had walked the few miles from there to the gas station a few times.  Perhaps this was a game.   I don’t know why he would do this exactly.  He claimed the gas gauge was broken.  In fact, there were other places at other times, in other areas of California that we also ran out of gas, but that’s another story.  I think  he liked to live on the edge, or maybe it was something else, maybe his reasoning skills are broken.  And Dad, if you’re reading this, you know it’s true.  Back in those days, you could hitch-hike to a certain extent without the same kind of worries that you have today.  Needless to say, I grew up thinking running out of gas was sort of fun?  Now I know that it’s terrible for your car, ruining pipes and so forth and being in L.A., it’s definitely dangerous.  So let’s just say that I don’t wait until the last-minute any longer.

I had run out of gas a long time ago, around the age of 18.  The steering wheel had locked up, something I didn’t know about at that time.  It was scary, but I was lucky because a police officer had seen me, pulled over, and literally pushed my car with his car, around the corner to a gas station.  Was he another Earth Angel?

So here I was, driving to work, with a very low gas tank.  Traffic had come to a stand-still and I started to really worry.  I was on the freeway and I really didn’t know for sure if I was going to make it to the next exit.  Sitting there, in traffic, not moving, was lowering my chances of EVER making it to work.  It was a hot day, but I knew better than to run the air conditioning or else I definitely wouldn’t make it off the freeway.

I finally made it to my exit and my gas tank still hadn’t hit the R yet.  I was convinced that I could make it all the way to work as long as it didn’t hit the R.  That was, until that familiar feeling in my steering wheel hit.  Right as it did, it dawned on me that I had just passed a gas station.  I immediately flipped a u-turn, struggling with my steering wheel.  It just so happened that there were no cars on the street at that moment when I did this, and this is L.A. in the Wilshire district, making it a strange serendipitous coincidence.

As my car struggled on its last fumes, I attempted to roll up to a gas pump.  This was going slightly uphill in the drive-way.  I realized quickly that I wasn’t totally going to make it.  As my car started to drift backwards, I immediately pulled the emergency brake to stop it from rolling back into the street.  I had at least made it to the gas station.  This was a true miracle.

I was feeling REALLY lucky at this point.   I had just ran out of gas and for the life of me, I had no idea how I had been so lucky that I was able to literally roll right into a gas station.  I am a glass is half-full kind of person, so I knew no matter what, I was going to feel lucky for the rest of the day.  I felt like someone was watching over me.  What if I had run out of gas on the freeway?  I was in a fairly safe neighborhood in L.A.  There was nothing that could keep me from smiling for the rest of the day.

Stupidly, I was un-prepared though.  I didn’t know my debit card number by heart (still) and the gas station didn’t take credit cards.  I didn’t have any cash on me and I couldn’t call anyone because my phone was dead.  I didn’t have any change on me, not even a penny.  At this point I was feeling like quite the idiot.  I didn’t worry.  I knew if I had to, I could walk to work, even if I was in heels…… it was only a couple of miles away.   I knew there was a solution, I just didn’t know what it was going to be quite yet.  The guy at the gas station wasn’t going to help me, nor was anyone in line, so I started walking back to my car, wondering what I was going to do next.

Luckily an Earth Angel came to my rescue.  He asked me what happened to my car, (as he was getting gas) and I explained that I was an idiot and ran out of gas and that I’d use my credit card but they only take debit and I’d call someone for help but my phone was dead.  I told him not to worry, that I would figure something out.  He told me to hold on.  I didn’t know what he meant but I said ok.  And then he asked me to hold the gas pump.  “Don’t put the pump back,” he said.  He asked for my keys and so I gave my keys to him.  I wasn’t worried about him stealing my car.  It didn’t have any gas and his car was far nicer than mine, how would he drive two?  So I waited, wondering what his plan was.

He got in my car, took the break off and with the help of another person, (another Earth Angel) who kindly jumped in, pushed my car up to the pump.  He put $2 worth of gas in my car and told me where a nearby gas station was that took credit cards.  I thanked him profusely and said, “I wish there was something I could give to you.”  He said in return, “Just pay it forward.”

He was right.  That kind of kindness comes from somewhere unexplainable, somewhere so sweet and true, it gives me goosebumps.  I don’t know that I’ve paid it forward yet, not quite to that extreme, but I hope to be as kind, to be as wonderful as he and someday be someone else’s Earth Angel.

For those of you that have been following my blog posts, I have been out of insurance (but now have it) for the past three years.  Losing my insurance, because my husband lost his teaching job and we could not afford Cobra, was a blessing to a certain extent because it forced me to try alternative methods, and I found some excellent ones, including my two favorite, Low Dose Naltrexone and Serracor-NK.  Raising my Vitamin D levels and B12 have also been some excellent choices of mine along with other great choices like fish oil, etc., all improving my quality of life.  RA is very hard to control.  Just talk to anyone who’s on the conventional meds and you will find that many still haven’t found the right cocktail, and most are still experiencing joint damage despite taking DMARD’s.   I’m certainly not against drugs, but I will say that taking alternatives has opened my eyes to the possibility of healing my body rather than just suppressing the disease.  So now that I have insurance, it means for me, going back to the doctor, not to see what my choices are, but to get blood work done, x-rays and let the doctor know what choices I’m in favor of.

I hadn’t seen my favorite nurse in several years.  She gave me a giant hug.  ”Wow, you look great!” she said.  She asked me what I was taking for my RA.  I told her supplements, but that I wasn’t on any drugs except for the occasional prednisone.  She said, “Wow, it’s really working, you look fantastic!”

Unfortunately, my Rheumatologist experience was definitely a poor one.  Before this Rheumatologist, I had researched and found a much older gentleman who became my Rheumatologist for approx one year.  He was open-minded, not against antibiotic therapy, not against supplements or icing my arm which proved to be the most beneficial in reducing the inflammation in my left forearm in particular, and he had enough experience and knowledge that I felt I had found a good doctor.  When I saw him for the first time, he ordered one x-ray of one hand.

After one year however, he retired.  He told me he found an excellent replacement, a young woman graduating from UCLA.  I was disappointed that I would no longer have my old doctor, but I was open to having a new doctor, especially a woman.  When I met her, she seemed nice enough.  She was young and beautiful and very friendly.  She sent me to x-rays and for blood work.  When the radiologist told me I had 30 x-rays to get done, I thought, “Really?”  At that time, I was not as forthright with my care.  I didn’t put my foot down and say, “that’s way too many.”  Instead, I let the x-rays happen, including one to my throat (which I have hypothyroidism and that’s never a good idea) and including one to my pelvis, (I am of child-bearing age and that’s never a good idea either).  And then I lost my insurance and I got a bill of $700 for all my x-rays.  I fought the bill for over 6 months, and eventually the insurance took care of it.  I was unhappy with the doctor because you should never expose yourself to that much radiation.  X-rays are cumulative, and even though there’s no clear evidence of how much is too much, I’m on a healing path, not a path of increasing the toxins in my body.   And having had a doctor, a great doctor, who only ordered one x-ray, and one later on to compare, I knew that 30 x-rays were approximately 29 too many.

What I find interesting, is that when you look for information on the internet, it’s always, “Well you’re exposed to radiation all the time from natural sources.”  But what makes this ok?  Why would you then want to increase your exposure?  Two wrongs don’t make a right, right?  It’s easy for doctor’s to poo poo the fear of two many x-rays, while billing your insurance, putting money in their pocket, but let me just say this, a close relative of mine who is a radiologist, was quite upset to hear that I was exposed to 30 x-rays before and thought my doctor was a quack and just trying to pay off her college loans.  He chooses not to get x-rays whenever they aren’t absolutely necessary.

I hadn’t seen my new Rheumatologist in almost 3 years and I was convinced that she had probably learned a thing or two since I had last seen her.  Or maybe she would at least know not to give ME so many x-rays.  I was open to the possibility that I just needed to give her a second chance.  Maybe before, she just didn’t know.  She was surprised how flexible I was and how little inflammation and deformity I appeared to have.  So there you have it, my supplement regimentation is working to a certain extent.

At the end of the apt., she asked if I was open to getting my hand x-rayed.  ”Sure”, I said, “but please I don’t want any x-rays of my thyroid or ovaries because that can be very harmful.”  She didn’t say anything, so I wondered if she knew what I was referring to and sent me down for blood work and x-rays.

When I saw the technician, he said, “Ok, 18 x-rays today.”  I said, “What?  How can that be?”  And he explained that there were several of each hand, several of each feet, etc.  At first I thought, “well ok, it’s just the hands and feet.”  But thinking back to how many my previous Rheumatologist exposed me to, (totaling two) and considering just 3 years ago, this doctor had exposed me to 30, I told the technician I’d pass.

I walked back to my Rheumatologist office and handed the paper ordering the x-rays to the nurse and said, “Tell her this is simply too many” and left.

I just figured it was time for me to find a new Rheumatologist.  And so my quest begins….

I don’t know why it’s taken me 5 years to start juicing.  It didn’t seem to matter how many times I read or heard how great juicing would be for me. The thought of  buying an expensive juicer, only to clean it daily, and buy ingredients frequently, etc. sounded terrible.  I’m not much of a cook and I am so busy, I just never realized that I could fit it in my lifestyle.

I had been thinking about juicing for some time, but I owe it to a co-worker from Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Paulli, who gave me that kick in the rear to get going.  She said, “What are you waiting for?”  And I realized, I didn’t really have an answer.  No excuse was a good excuse. This was my health I was talking about!  Buying a juicer this month sounded unrealistic, but she was right, no amount of money was worth sacrificing my health.  If this was going to make me better, then seriously, what was I waiting for?

I realized that I could at least try and use my blender.  If it didn’t work, I could buy a juicer, no excuses. I finally took it out of the top cupboard and brought it to work and put it on the counter, the same day that I bought some juicing staples for the week.  I had a few of the ingredients already, like turmeric, cayenne pepper and apple cider vinegar.

I chopped up a few stalks of celery, the entire cucumber, put a spoonful of turmeric, a spoonful of cayenne pepper, a splash of Apple cider vinegar, a splash of carrot juice that has omegas added, a splash of strawberry Kefir, and finally a splash of the green juice blend from Trader Joe’s.  And walla!  Instant juice drink!  The blender is detachable, so whatever I don’t drink, I just put in the fridge and blend again later.  In fact, day old juice tastes even better!  And the cleanup is super easy.  I just rinse out the blender and it’s ready to juice again!
It took me a bit to get used to the flavor, but I’ve actually acquired a taste for it now!  I’m planning on getting more ingredients…like parsley, ginger, almond milk, kale and whatever else I think would be great for reducing inflammation and adding antioxidants to my body.

Maybe it’s too soon to tell but I would swear that I can already feel a difference.  Two pitchers of smoothies later, I really think this is going to take me somewhere great.  It felt as though it was cleaning my body.  My intestinal health has never been great but since having had RA, it’s been extremely poor.  After juicing I felt like my intestines were saying “Hooray!”  Maybe that’s too much information, but I can feel a giant difference.   Thank you Paulli for your encouragement!

Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how this goes!  Please feel free to ask for advice on juicing.  I have some pretty strong opinions as to what you should and should not be drinking!

many hugs,

Sarah

Hi!  I just wanted to let everyone know that if you enjoy my posts then feel free to drop in on http://blog.s4studios.com where I will also be blogging.  See the latest post and what this picture is all about and learn a little more about me!

gentlehugs,

-Sarah

I let this old post get buried…It was written probably about eight months ago.  So here it is to all those who might be interested in reading it:

For many of you who are not aware, a few weeks ago, people who lived in the L.A. and N.Y. area were contacted through Daily Strength to audition for a Rheumatoid Arthritis commercial.  Luckily, the very day that it was posted, I contacted Sessions West Studios and scheduled for an audition.  But here’s the thing….I’m terrible at public speaking.  My knees get week, I start to sweat and shake, and you would think I was about ready to go into convulsions.  The director at the studio was very sweet and did his best to get a good take of my audition.  I was hoping I would just be going in to talk about my experience with RA.  No such luck however.  They required actual acting!

Thinking that I had completely blown my chances, I got back to work with a sad look on my face.  I really wanted the gig, and the pay wasn’t too shabby!  My finances were particularly poor at the moment.   My husband was out of work, I was working part time and barely surviving, wondering how my husband and I would get through the next few months.  That $4000 could keep us going!  So the pressure was definitely there.  It’s like someone handed me a check and said you can have this if you can just do this one thing right.  And in this case, it’s acting!

That day I got a phone call from the casting studio.  “You have a call back” they said!  I was thrilled, to say the least!  My nerves were at an all time high as I waited for the next call to let me know what time.  Days passed.  When I never received the call, I started to grow worried.  The call back was for Friday and here it was Thursday.  Was it just a mistake?  Was I not getting a call back?  Finally that afternoon, the phone rang again with the time I was needed to come in on Friday.

I arrived at the Santa Monica studio, after having rehearsed from what I could remember of the script.  “My RA is not the same as your RA” I kept repeating in my head.  But when I got there, my nerves just got worse.  The people around me chosen for the call back looked beautiful and confident.  When they called my name, my legs started to tremble again.  This time there were more people watching me and a different director.  Everything had changed, the room, the placement of the camera, and even how I was to say my lines.  I became as stiff as a board without even noticing.  The director tried to get me to be relaxed in front of the camera, but for the life of me, no matter how much I wanted the gig, it just wasn’t happening.  I told him, “If I can just get my knees to stop shaking, I’ll be ok.”  He chuckled.

They took two takes and then had me wait out in the lobby.  They called two girls back and sent me home.  “thanks”, they said.  I walked out to my car, holding back tears.  I was so close.  I wanted it so badly.  I needed it, but it was too late.

And now you’re hoping for a happy ending.  Well, I’m not sure I can deliver what you may think so just keep reading…  I knew I didn’t get the gig I was hoping for, but what I did get was another call.  “We’re thinking about using you for print,” they said.  I didn’t hear back from them for several days.  I got a call back and they said, “The print job is no longer available but we may use you as a hand model.”  Hand model?  Crazy…never thought of my swollen fingers as being great for modeling.

It was fun being on the list of producers, directors, photographers, etc.  as “talent”.  It was definitely a fun experience!!  I was also used a little in part of the commercial, where you see my shoulder and barely the side of my face.  It’s unrecognizable really, but I had a good time. I was a little concerned that my hands were swelling more and more.  I was part of a clinical trial at the moment, and so I was getting worse because the medication I was taking for it was giving me a reaction.  And I wondered if I would be turned away.  But the truth is, I think the director made up the job for me.  He told me, he had never had an actress be so honest.  And he told everyone what I said on set, about how if I could just get my knees to stop shaking, I’d be ok.  He thought that was so endearing, he said, that he wanted to find a way to make me part of this.  Awwww.  What can I say, How cool is that?

So here I was, on a shoot, watching the commercial be created right before my eyes.  I’m in the entertainment business, so this wasn’t too crazy for me, but what was great was that one of the girls, the print model became a good friend.  Both were from N.Y.  The other girl, is a dancer in N.Y. for Broadway.  I got to eat great food.  I got to be part of the commercial on both days.  And as a hand model, the pay was not bad!  So it wasn’t much compared to what it could have been, but I was still very very grateful!  And the commercial came out excellent.  The girl who acted in was fantastic and I just loved her voice for the part!

So as you can see, when an opportunity comes along, I take it!  And it works the same way for this disease… I give most things a chance, given that I’ve looked into the possibilities on how it will affect me.  Life is full of opportunities and new experiences if you let it!  And I don’t believe that things are always, “too good to be true.”  Sometimes things are simply too good and too true.  :)

Just a reminder that I am not a doctor and please read my Disclaimer on this site.  (just click on the link).  I have started working on pages that I will be putting up soon on condition-specific supplement recommendations.  If you have a disease that you’d like me to put up there specifically, please comment to this post and recommend it!  So far, these are the conditions I have in mind to talk about:

Lupus

Multiple Sclerosis

Psoriasis

Psoratic Arthritis

Pulmonary Fibrosis

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Osteoarthritis

Parkinson’s

Crohn’s

ALS   also known as Leu Gehrig’s Disease

Autism

Thank you for your help and I hope to have this ready for you soon!

Sincerely,

-Sarah Keturah

The Sky Is the Limit, or the amount your body and mind can take, given disease and sleep deprivation.

So I’ve been trying to keep it together and so far so good.  I’m tired and my skin is showing the results of drinking Rockstar, but otherwise, I’m doing well.

I guess my main complaint would be that I don’t feel as competent as I’d like in any area of my life right now.  There’s a point in any job or class that you want to feel like things are just smooth sailing.  And for me, even though it’s getting close to smooth sailing, I’m still on bumpy turf.  This morning for instance, I’m working at Gnomon School of Visual Effects.  The person that trains me is out for the day.  So I’m having to ask everyone else how to do everything.  Granted, I’m learning way more this way by doing, but I’d rather it be that I just felt comfortable, you know?  Even answering the phone, because I haven’t done it all that much, still feels awkward.

Zbrush class is starting to get a little more fun now that I know my way around the program a little bit better.  At the same token however, it still feels foreign and I have to re-read my notes and google questions that I have for most things with the program.  I’m also having to watch Zbrush tutorials for refreshing.  But I’m loving the program and just wish all I had to do was live and breath Zbrush for a while.  This weekend I’m going to give my 3D character my all since mid-terms are coming up.  Depending on how it goes, I may post it.  :)

The bowling alley is another story.  I am getting better at it but boy is it hard work.  I never realized that working there would be so tough.  I really thought that I’d have very little to do.  So I’d rather have it be tough and busy so that I actually make money than have me just standing around.  Time goes faster when you’re busy too.  On Mondays I wait on Leagues back to back.  I don’t know how many leagues I wait on, but I have tables too.  I’m guessing since I have 10 lanes and each lane has around 5 people, that I’m potentially waiting on 50 people, give or take because not everyone orders.  But if you can imagine, 50 people, plus other tables, it can get quite busy sometimes.  And I wait on one league and then another.  So I’m constantly putting in orders, memorizing names and drinks.  It’s much more difficult that I could have ever imagined.  But I am enjoying it now that I’m getting to know people and their drinks a little bit better.  On Tuesdays, the other server can’t come in until 7.  So from 5 till 7 I wait on 24 lanes, one of them being a league.  Sometimes it’s not as difficult as it sounds and sometimes it’s REALLY difficult.  This past Tuesday took the cake.  I was exhausted!  My feet simply couldn’t move fast enough for everyone’s orders.

But what else is new?  Well, I’ve joined twitter officially.  And that means I’m posting frequently.  I am in charge of marketing the studio that I work for.  And this past week I’ve decided to take the studio into twitter world.  And doing so, I realized that I needed to tweet more often too.  So I’m double tweeting…  tweeting for me and tweeting for the studio.  I like it,but it’s a whole new world that I know nothing about.

And of course, keeping everything straight in my head is a challenge.  I find that answering the phone for Gnomon School is probably the most difficult, given that for the past almost 5 years, I’ve been answering the phone (and still do) for S4 Studios.  So every time I pick up that phone, my head literally says, “‘Don’t say S4 Studios’, Say ‘good morning gnomon’”  Since I’m only at Gnomon two days a week and I don’t always answer the phone, it’s something I haven’t been able to turn into a habit yet.  You would think out of everything I do, this would be the easiest task, but it’s quite the opposite.  OMG and transferring calls is another task I’m just not used to.  Oh well, I will get it eventually.  I was told I won’t be feeling comfortable with all the ins and outs of this internship until the second semester.

With all of that, I’ve been debating whether I should do a couple more things.  Like I should add anything more to my schedule, right?  Well, the two things are these.  First, I was asked if I’d like to work a Sunday bar-tending shift for now on.  I told the manager that I would have to think about it.  Normally I would say no.  But in reality, I think bar-tending is a pretty good skill to learn for living in Los Angeles as a female.  Female bartenders can make a lot of money at some places.  And although I probably wouldn’t make all that much here, it would give me a chance to really learn how to bar-tend.  So I’m leaning towards asking if I can alternate Sundays, that way every other Sunday I will have a break.  That’s what I think I’ve decided.  Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how that goes.

The other thing I’ve been debating is becoming a vendor at Venice Beach.  I was thinking of doing portrait sketches, as well as selling paintings.  The only problem here is that you have to be there by 5 a.m.  Any later than that, and there’s no chance of getting a spot.  I’ve heard that the money potential is fantastic.  Not only that, but it would give me a day at the beach, more exposure as an artist, more practice as an artist, and it would help simply get my name and S4 Studio’s name out there.  But late nights plus a 5 am. morning Sat and/or Sunday would be really difficult.  So I’m having a tough time trying to figure out how to wing it.  I currently have all the supplies ready to go.  So I’m prepared to do it, I just have to try.  Stay tuned and I’ll let you know if I give that a shot this weekend.

Can my plate be more full?  Probably not but don’t freak out.  I’ve always been this way.  Having RA has really slowed me down, or at least it has made me slow down.  I’m finally getting back to feeling like my normal self again, grabbing the bull by its horns and going for it.  For the past five years I’ve worked really hard at finding the answers for my RA.  I won’t say that I’ve found the answers exactly, but I will say that after all these years of research, my daily supplement routine has finally made it possible that I can do what I’m doing now.  I wish you all the best success that life has to offer.  Thank you for your support!

Oh and one more thing!  Wish me luck on getting the RA scholarship that I’m hoping for, from http://reachbeyondra.com  I hope they give it to me so I can pursue 3D animation and modeling with a vengeance!

Hello everyone!  So I just wanted to catch you up on what’s going on with me, not just in terms of RA but with everything else.  I’ve sort of been gone for a while.  I still check for comments on this blog but I hadn’t had a real chance to properly write a post!  I’ve been busy, very very busy.  I still have tons of backstories to tell you all but for now, I will just begin with what’s been going on lately, and from where I left off on my last, “In My absence” post.

In my last “In My absence” post, I talked about having packed up all my stuff so my husband could move to a small town and work at his new job, teaching H.S..  We would then travel on weekends to see each other.  I hadn’t found a place to live…yet.

It was a bit of a scramble to find somewhere to live quickly.  I was offered a place to live at a friend’s mom’s house.  She’s a lovely lady with a lovely house and everything was going great except that what I really wanted was a shorter commute in the morning.  L.A. has areas of horrendous potholes and it seemed that every morning, no matter what way I drove to work, I would be driving over oodles of potholes.  They were destroying my car.  Not only that, but it could take up to an hour and a half to get to work.  The earlier I left, the longer it took.  So there was no way around this.  Not only that, I longed to live by the beach.  I figured, since this was my opportunity to live anywhere in L.A. and work wasn’t too far from Santa Monica, that my goal was to live in Santa Monica.

I really didn’t know what was even possible.  I thought I might be commuting forever, because I wasn’t sure that I would find anything better than that.  The best I could find at this point was a share-a-room type of situation.  I hadn’t really met too many people yet about this.  I had emails, I had gone to one rental space and so far, nothing was calling my name. Besides that, if there was something good, it was snatched up within seconds.  So I knew that if I found anything remotely good, I needed to take it as quickly as possible.

I saw an ad for a beautiful room in a giant, million dollar house.  It of course sounded, too good to be true.  I called anyway because I believe there’s no such thing as “too good to be true.”  I am a optomist and I’m going to stay that way, and too many things in my life have been too good to be true, and yet they were true!!  I went to the house, and it was indeed beautiful. If I got the space, my room would have its own bathroom and walk-in closet.  Furniture needed to stay, and thankfully, I had no furniture!  A sweet dog greeted me.  The house was decorated grandma-style, doilies, child-sized dolls and fringe were everywhere.  Still, I was not detoured.  I knew it was either this or a party-house and I would much rather have this.  Not only that, but it was located 3 miles from Venice Beach.  And fyi, there are very few potholes going from the west side to central Los Angeles.

I suppose, if you are a glass is half empty type, you might be happy to hear that there are a lot of drawbacks.  There are rules in every shape and direction, ranging from smelly foods to doing laundry past 9pm or before 9am.  I have to be extremely quiet and yet, the entire family is incredibly loud, waking me up at night sometimes, and waking me up in the morning.  We’re talking Italian loud, screaming, talkative, etc.   There is a cat and a dog and the house does smell like cat and dog.  And the dog did pee in my room one time…and that was the last time that dog was in my room.  So I keep my room super clean and always have a couple of windows open for ventilation.  And there are other things….but I really don’t want to complain about all fo them.  Let’s just say, you have to be as tolerant as a Saint and if it weren’t for my room, the amenities and the view, I would have been out of that house yesterday.  All in all, it’s a wonderful place and I got really lucky.  We’re talking L.A. here.  There is never an easy room-mate situation, so I am not complaining!  When my husband comes to visit, we have to either find other arrangements or pay an extra $35 for him to stay the night.  For now, we find other arrangements because we can’t afford the nightly stay.

I was feeling the money crunch.  Between my husband living in his own place, and me living in my own place, and of course gas, I was feeling extremely frustrated that we were no further ahead really than we were before.  So I decided that I needed a second job.  I have a lot of experience in serving, and one of my goals was to become fit, so I decided to combine the two.  I needed to find a place that wouldn’t work me too much, but would provide exercise as well as that extra little bit of cash that I needed so I wouldn’t feel so strapped.

Needless to say, I was having a VERY difficult time finding a job.  Beach jobs especially were highly coveted.  Of course, it had only been a couple of weeks…..

I reluctantly went to an interview at a Bowling Alley far from my home.  I just knew I was going to get the job.  It would be a lot of traveling, exactly what I didn’t want.  And sure enough, I got the job.  I started working there the day after the interview.  Training was minimal, so I began earning tips right away.  The commute didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would because it was at night and I was getting tired of looking for jobs and going to interviews.  Looking for jobs is a job in itself.  Plus, I was having to learn so much at the bowling alley, I was feeling overwhelmed from all the cramming of information.  And I will tell you more about that in a moment….

In the meantime, I had also gone to an interview at the art school that I had taken my last class on Maya.  An opening for a position where you do a trade-your-time-for-a-class had come up.  This is a highly coveted spot and the positions are almost always filled, so again, I got super lucky.  Partly my luckiness is due to my consistent drive.  I asked on numerous occasions if there was a position opening.  And at first, I got no answer.  And then I got a no.  But I always keep asking, because until I get the answer from the right person, or better yet, from all decision makers, then the answer in my head is that there’s still a possibility.  I hadn’t heard that there was a trade, and I never knew of a school that did a trade, but call it intuition, I had a feeling that there might be.  And at $1,800 per class, I couldn’t pass it up!  So now I was going to be working at my part-time gig, the studio, as well as 12 hours a week at the art school, along with working at the Bowling alley and on top of that, take a class.  I didn’t know how long I could keep it all up, but figured I would just have to try.

So that’s why I was getting information overload.  I had started class, ZBrush, a highly technical 3D software program, along with learning the computer system at the Bowling alley.  You’d think that was no big deal, but it was actually quite complicated.  The computer system at the Bowling Alley is so un-intuitive that they’re getting a whole new system soon.  Along with learning that, the menu and how they do things, I also had to learn about the leagues.  Different leagues come in, and they expect to be treated like royalty.  They expect for you to learn their name and their drink.  And each time you bring them a new drink, they close out the tab.  So it’s important to remember their name and drink because the next time you see them, well every time you see them, they’ll just point to their empty drink, suggesting that they get another.  And since you don’t have a tab open anymore, everything has to be done on memory.  And it’s so fast paced, it’s impossible to just keep the tickets with you and organized.  So you have to throw the tickets away, or else you’d have a giant pile.  It’s constant running, all the while playing a game of concentration with the drinks, the names and the computer system.

But I have to say that I’m starting to smooth everything out.  I finally got the Bowling Alley to give me only two shifts a week so that my weekends are free and that I’m not overloaded during the week.  Working their means super late nights, so I do find it a bit exhausting.  But, I’m getting the hang of how to balance everything.

Back when I went to art school in Boston and worked several jobs as well, I might not have had RA but I had a uber busy schedule.  I learned how to balance my schedule based on what was going on.  I’d take time off one place, to make it work for another.  It wasn’t easy, in fact, it was one of the most difficult times of my life.  But it taught me that I could survive, even through the toughest of situations.  I find this situation that I’m currently in, MUCH MUCH MUCH easier than that!  So, let’s just say I’m not sweating it, even with the RA.

Speaking of RA, how is my RA you ask?  Well, if you don’t know anything about RA, one thing to know is that when you amp up the exercise, you often flare.  When you amp up stress, you flare.  And when you don’t get enough sleep, you flare again.  My RA was VERY controlled before I started all the moving and other jobs.  So I was expecting the flares before they happened.  I’ve been using prednisone to get out of my flares.  It’s effective in the short-term, but what will I do for the long run?  Well, I’m planning on taking exclzyme 2af to help bring my cortisone levels back to normal.  I’ve also been learning a lot about Kefir from a girl on Daily Strength.  Her advice is to buy the grains and make it yourself so that you get the real thing.  As well, once you buy the grains, you never have to buy them again because they continue to grow or something like that.  So I bought myself a starter kit but I know even that stuff aren’t the “official” grains.  Basically we’ve genetically modified the grains so they will die, meaning so you HAVE to buy new grains.  But the real stuff, stuff you can buy from the UK doesn’t die and continues to make new grains.  Kefir is supposed to have all the ingredients we are lacking as autoimmune diseased individuals according to this girl that I spoke with.  So whether this is true or not, I have no idea, as I haven’t done research yet.  But why wait when I can start enjoying Kefir today and see what happens, right?  Supposedly Kefir is supposed to have protein that our bodies can digetst, B12 and calcium and there’s some kind of complicated process that our bodies can’t handle, which is why other foods just don’t suffice.  I will let you know if there are any dramatic changes.  I know that many people like to do one thing at a time and see what works.  I simply don’t do things that way…it would take far too long for me to ever get better.  I try bunches of things and then after taking them for a while, stop taking something.  If I notice a difference after a couple of weeks, I say to myself, “What am I not taking that’s making me worse?”  Then I buy the product again and if I start to get better, I say, “Aha!  It’s probably this.”  And I might go through that process several times.  If I stop taking something and no change happens, then I assume that it’s not strong enough to work, or something along those lines.  I am not a science project, out to prove what works and what doesn’t.  I’m a living, breathing person, looking for the best treatments in the shortest amount of time.

So I guess the shortened answer on how my RA is doing is that I take it day by day, but for the most part, it is fairly controlled and I am doing well.  AND, the bowling brace I use for carrying heavy trays really really helps!  :)  Many wishes that your days are filled with fun, enjoyment and feeling good and I hope to keep on posting on what’s new with me!

Thank you for checking in!-Sarah