About the Video

My project has been going well. I have planned out the beginning of my video. I am going to open up with a really dramatic score. After the dramatic info I’m going to say “Hi my name is Chris Sirico and I am an alcoholic.” The camera person is going to respond “Dude wrong video.” I’m going to respond to that with “Oh s**t, start that over.” The screen is going to buffer for a second, then I will continue, “Hello, my name is Chris Sirico and I have Rheumatoid Arthritis.” OI will then continue by telling my story. “I was 19 at the time, and I had just finished my freshman year of college.” “For the first month I was home, I barely moved.” *Here I will cut to me struggling to wake up, acting sluggish and lazy. “My mother became worried about this behavior because of how active I once was.” *Cut to pictures of the sports I once participated in. I am also getting recordings of my mother and brother talking about my RA. *Here I would cut to my mother speaking on my actions at that time. After my mother speaks, I would then start talking about the initial steps I took to figuring out what was wrong with me. “After continuous days of feeling pain in my joints, we decided to go to a Rheumatologist. A rheumatologist is a doctor that specifically treats patients with rheumatoid arthritis. When we got there, I was initially laughing but my mother was not. After an evaluation of my joints, the doctor did blood work. The results came back a week later indicating that my AA levels were higher than the average, which is commonly seen in Rheumatoid Arthritis patients.” *Cut screen to blackness. “So at that moment I was officially diagnosed with the auto-immune disease known as Rheumatoid Arthritis.” *Go back to video “You know it’s not that dramatic” *Video will cut to blackness; a dramatic score will play. *Go back to video “But seriously stop doing that.” *Video cuts to blackness once again with more dramatic score. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story of not?” Camera man: “Go on.” Me: “Thank you. Now because of this diagnosis, the doctor decided to recommended to take a drug called ‘Embrel’.” *Cut to clip of Embrel commercial. “He recommends this drug for young people like myself, because of the desire to live a normal life. The drug is meant to suppress my immune system and relieve the pain I feel from my aching joints. Side effects of comprising my immune system with this drug would consist of getting sick more often, which is not appealing. Another problem with the drug is the price. To take a weekly dosage of the drug, the cost would reach to somewhere around $20,000 a year. When the doctor mentioned this price point, I immediately thought to myself ‘No way I’m doing this’. I knew my parents were already struggling to stay in the nice area we live in, and the last thing I wanted to do was add another financial burden. After we left that day, many days had gone by without talking about it. Eventually we went back and I received some pills to take for the pain when I went back to school the next semester.” *Cuts to blackness. “During that semester I broke down. I began doing drugs on a more consistent basis, drank till I blacked-out, and spent whole days just lying in bed. My self-loathing had reached an unhealthy magnitude and I began to wholeheartedly believe that my quality of life was not worth living. Because mental prison I had locked myself into, I had received my worst grades yet. My friends worried about me, but I never wanted to talk about it even when they tried. At the end of that semester, I decided it was best for me to go home for the next semester and get my body and mind right.” *Cuts to blackness, with a heavenly score. “That’s when I met Dr. Amoroso.” “Since, my mom was constantly worried about my situation, she would mention it to relatives whenever given the opportunity. One day she mentioned it to my second aunt, who then recommended us to a holistic chiropractor by the name of Christopher Amoroso. My aunt had brought my second cousin, Frankie, to this doctor for his Crohn’s disease. Like myself, Frankie tried to take many different kinds of medications to solve help lessen the effects of his disease, but nothing worked. Eventually, she was recommended to bring him to Dr. Amoroso. Upon the first visit, Dr. Amoroso sold his idea to them, and they stuck with it. After following the regimen closely and precisely, Frankie was finally able to control his bowels. My mother told me this story, and I felt that it was worth the try. When I got there, Dr. Amoroso explained what he does. *Cut to Dr. Amoroso explaining what he does. “He sold me.” “So after sending a stool sample to a lab for analysis, Dr. Amoroso sat me down and went over what was happening in my gut. After this, he had me detox for a month by drinking primarily only chicken broth. After slowly introducing new foods weekly, he gave me natural supplements to help make sure I was getting all the nutrients I need.