EP 86: New Lyme Movie by Rhisa Parera

 Mimi:
Welcome to the Lyme 360 podcast for all things related to Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses. I'm Mimi MacClean, mom of five, founder of Lyme 360 and a fellow Lyme warrior. Tune in each week to hear from doctors, health practitioners, and experts to learn about their treatments, struggles, and triumphs to help you on your healing journey. I'm here to heal with you.

Mimi:
Before we get started today, I wanted to talk to you about Dr. Bill Rawls. He has written one of my favorite Lyme books, Unlocking Lyme. He's an MD whose life was upended because of Lyme. From this experience, he had to change his practice and figured out how to heal himself. Dr. Rawls has created his own line of herbal supplements that support the immune system as a Lyme warrior. He offers a survey on his website to help determine which supplements you need. Go to lyme360.com/drrawls, which is D-R-R-A-W-L-S, to learn more about these amazing herbal protocols I have been using.

Mimi:
Hi, welcome back to the Lyme 360 podcast. This is your host, Mimi MacClean. And today we have on Rhisa Parera and she is a journalist, screenwriter, producer, and Lyme warrior, who was undiagnosed for 12 years. She suffered from GI issues, migraines, and vertigo.

Mimi:
Rhisa saw dozens of doctors who treated her for depression before she found a doctor who was Lyme literate and got her the testing that she needed. Her test came back positive and after a two week antibiotic treatment, she was pretty much left in the dark with what to do next. It's already tough getting clear answers within the Western medicine, but added being a woman, a Black woman, a Black Latina, and it seems that there was no help in sight. She now works to bring back into the spotlight Lyme and raise awareness around health advocation. She is the screen writer behind, Your Labs Are Normal.

Mimi:
To get my detox for Lyme checklist, go to lyme360.com/detoxchecklist.

Mimi:
Rhisa, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate your time. I want to start out by saying that I just watched your trailer and I'm extremely emotional over it, to be honest with you, especially the scene in the kitchen, because I never understood why people did that, wanted to take their life. But after going through what all of us have gone through, I think who are Lyme warriors, it pops up in your head, I got to admit, because you're in so much pain and you don't know if there's an end in sight and you don't see a lifeline.

Mimi:
So it's a really, really moving trailer. And I can't wait to watch the movie. I just actually learned about your movie this morning when I reached out to you and here we are talking. So I haven't had a chance to watch the movie and I really look forward to watching it. So were you already in the movies? What made you decide to take on this challenge of your movie?

Rhisa:
I went to college for TV and film production, but I've been dealing with Lyme technically, pretty much my entire life. But I wasn't diagnosed until two years ago. And when I was in college, I was already a wreck, complete neurologically, I was a wreck and I didn't know what was going on. And so even when I graduated, I didn't work in the field at all. I just was taking whatever job I could because I was just completely lost and I was always in pain and I didn't have the drive to apply for any production jobs because the hours are long and it's really hard. And how am I going to keep up with a job this? And I don't even know what the hell's wrong with me.

Rhisa:
And then I was diagnosed in September 2019, completely left in the dark, two weeks of doxycycline. I had no idea what was going on. The worst Herx ever. I didn't even know what a Herx was until I joined a Facebook group. And that's when I started looking into, and actually finding out what was going on. And then COVID hit and I lost my job, which was probably a blessing for me.

Rhisa:
And then I started just writing because I do like to write, I had always had screenplays on my computer. And something told me, "Oh, let's just write about what's happened in the past year." And I told my mom, I was like, "Oh, I wrote this. I have a good feeling about it that people like it and relate to it." And she said, "Do you really want to do it? If you believe in the project, I'll help you out." And she funded my entire film.

Mimi:
She funded it? Oh, wow, because that's the hard part of films is finding-

Rhisa:
Yeah. Indie films is really hard. And especially I had a fundraiser to help with just other miscellaneous expenses because there's so many things that pop up, small things that add up. But I didn't expect much because the beginning of the pandemic, people were losing their jobs. But I actually made a decent amount for some help to rent out the medical office and some other things. And every actor in the film, all of them, are my friends from previous jobs that I had.

Mimi:
The lead was unbelievable. She almost seems like she headlined because she really understood it, at least from that. She was very good actress.

Rhisa:
She asked me to describe exactly how the pain was, what I felt in my head, what I was thinking, what it sounded like, just literally every detail she wanted. And she really studied it. She studied the script. She added things to it. She was phenomenal.

Mimi:
She was really good. She was really good. There's so much I want to ask you. I don't even know where to start because it's just like-

Rhisa:
I have plenty of time.

Mimi:
I'm just amazed because taking on a movie is such a huge undertaking on top of doing it right out of school and on top of doing it during a pandemic and on top of not feeling well. There's just so many layers that I can't believe you did this in such a short time and then released it.

Rhisa:
Yeah, I was really nervous before filming. Pre-production, when you're just doing paperwork and renting places and getting things together, it's fine. And then when you're like, "Okay, we're about to have five 15 hour days. I think I might drop it."

Mimi:
Was it just five days of filming? You did it in five days?

Rhisa:
My budget wasn't that much, so we had to do it as quickly as possible.

Mimi:
And then did you use your crew from people that you knew from school or did you have to find other?

Rhisa:
No. Actually, my entire budget went to a production company.

Mimi:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Wow. Because I have gone through this. I invested in another film as well and it is actually about mental health and suicide as well and it was a low budget film. And so I experienced that. I wasn't the integral part of the movie like you are for your movie, but seeing those long days and seeing what it takes, I'm amazed that you were able to do this. So you finished this movie and then you were like, "Okay, now what do I do with it?"

Rhisa:
Right, exactly. I'm kind of still there actually.

Mimi:
What do you do with it, right? Because that's what you want to do is you want to try to figure out. Did you try to put it in any of the Sundance or any of the film festivals?

Rhisa:
I'm actually still waiting to hear back from a lot of festivals. We did get accepted to 11 festivals-

Mimi:
Did you really? [crosstalk 00:07:50].

Rhisa:
And we won five so far in different categories-

Mimi:
That's amazing.

Rhisa:
-I'm still waiting to hear, thank you, from the bigger ones. Because sometimes the festival might not be till next year.

Mimi:
I know. And right now a lot of them went online and they took risks, because I went through this with our movie. It's waiting, it's once a year. And then they only took certain amount because they were only online last year during COVID. And so you get to wait a whole year. But then I think once you win a couple, it disqualifies you for others, or something like you can't just keep going.

Rhisa:
So there's some that it can't have been like premiered at like a big festival or there's so many... Every festival you apply to, you have to read all the guidelines because there's so many bullet points. And some days, I just can't even process any words.

Mimi:
Yeah. It's really unbelievable. So where are you in your healing journey at this point?

Rhisa:
I'm a lot better than before.

Mimi:
What did you do, from the two weeks of antibiotics to now? What have you done that made it somewhat better?

Rhisa:
So I did the two weeks of doxy in September, 2019, and then one of my mom's friends, her friend, a friend of a friend, had Lyme and she went to a naturopath here in Georgia. So since we didn't really have any knowledge, I was like, well let's try that. And it helped a bit, but not enough. So then a year ago, I started going to Dr. Jemsek. They've helped me a lot. Last year, a year ago, I thought I was dying.

Mimi:
Yeah. And that's the antibiotics, is that what he does there?

Rhisa:
They do a mix of everything. But when you go there, they don't just throw the antibiotics at you. They kind of go through your whole medical history and first they try to get you healthy enough to even take the antibiotics. My gallbladder wasn't doing anything at all. My stomach was literally this big. I looked I was eight months pregnant when I walked in.

Mimi:
Oh my gosh.

Rhisa:
And I didn't have any periods. I had no periods for over a year. My body, it wasn't doing anything at all. I was yellow, complete jaundice, my eyes were just black and they had all these circles. I looked absolutely terrible. And they were like, "Okay, we got to fix you up first." So they just target everything with supplements. They do give you certain medications, but just to get you to a baseline. And then once you're well enough, then they start the antibiotics. But I also had to take my gallbladder out. So that was another thing.

Mimi:
Oh you did?

Rhisa:
The day I got my gallbladder out, literally when they took me into the recovery, my mom comes in and she's like, "You look completely different." My skin looked so much different. My face was yellow, I had jaundice and I had a ton of acne. She was like, "Your skin was different in an hour?" It was insane.

Mimi:
So that's what was causing it, it was the gallbladder issues.

Rhisa:
It was so inflamed.

Mimi:
And they think that's from the Lyme?

Rhisa:
Yeah.

Mimi:
It was attacking the gallbladder. Where are you? What would you say you are now, a B+, C+, A-? I always to do grades.

Rhisa:
I'd say a B.

Mimi:
Yeah. I don't know. I'm not convinced that anybody who's had full blown, maybe, will ever get back to the A+, A, where they were before.

Rhisa:
Same.

Mimi:
Maybe. I think you feel the same, but your limits are at least I feel my limits are... I feel great and I feel like I'm almost back there, but I'm never going to be able to run a marathon again.

Rhisa:
Oh no.

Mimi:
That's just not worth taxing my body over or I'm not even going to be able to go for long runs or even maybe even a SoulCycle class. Why bother doing that to myself or trying?

Rhisa:
I used to work at Flywheel in college.

Mimi:
You did? Did you do the classes and everything?

Rhisa:
At that time, I actually was doing them because when I was in college they were giving me a ton of antidepressants. I would have these highs and lows. I felt I was manic depressive or something because I would have two months where I would go to Flywheel classes, I'd go to yoga right after, I was doing CrossFit at one point. And then I'd have months where I'm dead. My mom was like, "You haven't been out in two months. What's going on?" I'm like, "I don't know. I'm exhausted."

Mimi:
So if someone were to ask you, a friend were to call up and say, "Hey, I just got diagnosed with Lyme, what do I do?", what would you tell them? I'm always like, start with the basics, making sure you're sleeping eight hours, figure that out. Because if you're not sleeping, even if you have to take a sleeping pill from your doctor, sleep. You have to sleep. Water, getting all the basic things down.

Rhisa:
I literally am like, can you poop?

Mimi:
Yeah, exactly.

Rhisa:
Can you go to the bathroom? Can you get things out of your body?

Mimi:
Can you sweat? If you're not sweating, go sit in a sauna until you sweat. Just the basics of eating healthy. I knew what eating healthy is, I went to school for it. But I really didn't really want to give up everything, but you really kind of have to give up everything until you're better. I hate to say it, but you do. And then you'll go back to it eventually when your body's stronger, but you can't be drinking and staying out late and then also expect your body to get better. You have to make healing a full-time job.

Rhisa:
Yeah. At 8 PM, I'm like, "Don't ask me to go anywhere. I'm out."

Mimi:
Just dial it back and say no until you're better and eating better. Did you have a strict diet?

Rhisa:
Yeah. I came down here to Atlanta last year and I just eliminated every sugar really hard.

Mimi:
Well, what makes it really hard is you're giving up everything you love, but you still don't feel better. And so you're like, "I still feel crap, but I gave up coffee and I gave up alcohol and I gave up gluten and I gave up sugar. What's left? And I still feel crap."

Rhisa:
Yeah. Growing up in New York, every morning in high school, I had a bagel, a bagel and a tea. Super light and sweet.

Mimi:
Yeah. The H&H Bagels. I can't believe that they're gone. Okay. I didn't really let you answer the question, I kind of answered it for you. What would you say to somebody?

Rhisa:
What we just said. I also would kind of base it on how they feel currently. Because some people are like, "I'm just super fatigued or I have gastrointestinal issues and I have this issue." I guess I always feel based on how they feel at the moment.

Mimi:
That's true.

Rhisa:
And if there's symptoms too, depending on what their symptoms are.

Mimi:
But I do feel a lot of people, at least I felt this way for the first couple years where you don't feel you can get better until you actually go see the doctor. Until you have enough money to go see the doctor, until you get off that wait list, you're just in a holding pattern. And I feel there's so, so much you can do from home that you can really start that healing process and maybe they're going to bring you over the end zone when you finally get there. But there's so much you can do, like herbs or probiotics and getting your gut health, working and detoxing that you can do. Just start detoxing and getting your gut health. Getting your immune system strong. And then go see that Lyme, as you're waiting. There's so much you can empower yourself to do.

Rhisa:
Yeah. That's pretty much what Jemsek does. They're like, okay, "We got to fix it up. You need a serious tune up. Your body is completely."

Mimi:
But definitely find a doctor that believes you. As you said in your movie, there's so many doctors that just don't believe you. And if you don't have the right doctor until you found that Lyme literate doctor, everyone was putting you on antidepressants.

Rhisa:
Before my diagnosis I was on antidepressants for exactly 10 years.

Mimi:
Oh my gosh. I'd be so mad.

Rhisa:
I was on four different antidepressants.

Mimi:
Because here's your you're growing up as a teenager and you're thinking, oh wait, there's something mentally wrong with. I'm dealing with something that I have no control over. Meanwhile, it wasn't.

Rhisa:
They were like, "It's a chemical imbalance."

Mimi:
Right.

Rhisa:
Oh my God. Really? I became this huge mental health advocate. Not that I wouldn't be one now, but I was doing mental health walks. I was doing all these things. I'm determined to help the world recover from depression because they gave me a diagnosis of major depressive disorder.

Mimi:
I interviewed Dr. Bach before, and that's his specialty, is dealing with teenagers, young adults, mental health. And he is convinced that very high number, I don't know if it's 100%, 90%, but most of those people who come in who are on some kind of antidepressant, he gets them off and he believes it's either a parasite, Lyme, nutritional imbalance. There's something that's causing it. It's not toxic overload that's making too much mercury that's making you not feel yourself or not have the energy to want to get out of bed.

Rhisa:
Yeah. That scene, the attempted suicide scene, that was pretty much me at 13. And I remember the day, I remember exactly the day. I remember the weather outside, I remember everything. And I'm like, "There's something completely wrong with me." And I'm in seventh grade and I'm like, "I don't know why I'm this crazy." And that year we lived in an apartment that had so much mold.

Mimi:
Oh, the black mold.

Rhisa:
So much mold. We have to throw all of our stuff out, everything we owned.

Mimi:
And the mold is what actually causes a lot of the mental issues. The doctor I see now she's like, "You can't get better if you have mold in your house." You're not getting better. It completely takes over your personality and makes you numb to the world.

Rhisa:
I always had a very chill personality, even as a kid. I was very just like, yeah, I went with the flow. But I remember around that time I was always so angry. I just wanted to throw, just like in the scene. I just wanted to throw things and I'm like, "What's wrong with me? Why do I want to throw things?" I just always felt like I was in fight or flight at every second of the day.

Mimi:
What's your goals? What do you hope to get out of the movie? And so you're doing the film festivals. And do you hope it gets picked up by somebody and bought? Where, if someone to see it right now if they want to see it?

Rhisa:
They can see it on vimeo.com. But if you look up yourlabsarenormal.com or on Instagram, you'll see the page. Honestly, I don't even need it to be bought by anybody. I just want people who don't know what it is to see it, because what I tried my best to do in the film is really not make it much about Lyme disease, which kind of threw people off because when people saw I was making a film, they were like, "Lyme disease film." And I'm like, "Guys, it's not going to teach you anything about Lyme disease really. It's going to show you the amount of time and stress and gaslighting that you experience to get the diagnosis."

Mimi:
It's very relevant about what's happening now, with the long haulers, not even long haulers, also the people that are [inaudible 00:19:45] injured, that they're being completely gaslighted and they're told... I've been reading these stories and you're like, it's exactly like Lyme patients where they show up at the emergency room and the doctor says, "There's nothing wrong with you. Your labs are normal."

Rhisa:
Right. I feel everyone's heard that.

Mimi:
Oh my God. Anybody who's had a chronic illness of some sort, because I think that happened to be three times where I showed up in the emergency room and every three times I left with a list of psychiatrists and you're like, "What? I'm not making this up. I have five kids. I have a great life. I don't need the attention. I want to live like. This is not for anything else, but I'm in pain."

Rhisa:
I remember one doctor told me, he said, because the pain was just getting worse and worse, I was almost in my late twenties at this point. And I'm like, "I can't deal with it. I'm literally losing it. I don't know how much longer I can hold on." And he asked me, "Have you tried yoga?" And literally I said, "I am a certified yoga teacher. I know how to do yoga." And he was completely dumbfounded, like, wait, what? I'm like, "Dude, I do yoga every day."

Mimi:
Not all doctors, but how are these doctors that don't believe in chronic Lyme? I'm just speechless.

Rhisa:
This was even before that, he told me, "It's just fibromyalgia. There's nothing you can do about it." And I'm like, "How did you just blurt that out?" Like, "Oh, so I'm in pain. And since you can't give me an answer, that's what it is?"

Mimi:
So it sounds we need to get this movie in the hands of every doctor.

Rhisa:
Yeah. So I actually had a few professors at universities who teach classes about public health or racism and equity and healthcare that they want to use it in their syllabus, which I'm totally for.

Mimi:
The young generation of students that are trying to become doctors who are in school right now to be doctors, those are the ones that still, I think we can get to and make them the future. Maybe the ones that have already gone through it's too late. It's funny, when you see doctors that have switched over to our side, you say to them, "How did this happen?" It's because they had a personal experience. If it was a child, a spouse, themselves, they usually burned out, like Dr. Hyman, who crashed during med school? Dr. Gedroic, my doctor, same thing. She crashed during medical school. That's when they're wait, and the Western medicine failed them and they were not able to get better. And they were gaslighted too. That's when they had an eye opening experience. So it's like, until that happens.

Rhisa:
I actually had a doctor at my premier in New York and he's known me since I was five years old. He was a friend of my mom and he knew certain things that were going on with me. But when he saw the film, he was like, "Wow, I'm so sorry that my community failed you so poorly." And now his practice, he's a pediatrician, he's actually testing more kids for Lyme and co-infections now.

Mimi:
Yeah. Tell him to throw mold in there now too.

Rhisa:
He was saying, "Wow, I have a few patients that describe everything you described in that film."

Mimi:
Right. Tell them to test for the microplasma too, because of the New York City apartments with the mold, like you said. The microplasma is just huge. That's great. So you know what, hopefully this movie will start changing more doctors, which then in turn, think about many other people's lives that you can save or make better because of it. Is there anything else that we haven't covered that you'd like to cover?

Rhisa:
I always talk about this one neurologist last. It's not really a funny story, but we kind of laugh when it happened. So right after the first round of antibiotics, I couldn't walk straight. I would stumble side to side and I couldn't walk in a straight line and I go back to the doctor and she is just like, "Oh, I don't know what to tell you. You're treated, you're cured, go on live your life." At this point. I'm like, "Lady, I literally can't."

Mimi:
You can't walk.

Rhisa:
I was leaning on the walls, walking to Mount Sinai on East 14th Street, like literally leaning on buildings to try to get to my appointments. She sent me to her neurologist and the minute I walk in, he's like, "Okay, so you have this, headaches, dizziness." And I told him what happened. And he asked me, "Where are your parents from?" And I'm like, "What? What does that even matter?" And he's like, "I just want to know where your parents are from." I was just so like, out of it, I'm like, "Well, my dad's from New York, my mom's born and raised in Puerto Rico. She came here for college to the states." And he says, "Oh, well, that's it. You have HIV."

Mimi:
Oh my God. That's a racial comment first of all.

Rhisa:
He said, "Yeah, you're probably just HIV positive." And I'm like, "Okay. I heard your the first time." And I'm like, okay, well, one, I went to the GYN last week and I had all my tests and that's not what it is. But two, that's racist and I ripped up the paper. And my mom's like, "Did you report him to the board?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know what's happening. I don't have the mental capacity to write board of whatever and what I'm supposed to do. I don't know, mom. I don't know." Also, I had other doctors that were "Black people don't get Lyme disease. Black people who live in the projects don't get Lyme disease." And I was like, "Okay, wait, what is happening here?"

Rhisa:
Crazy story is that when we booked the medical office to shoot our scenes, it happened a year or something later, I get there and I'm like, "Oh my God, this is the neurologist's office told me that I had HIV because I'm Puerto Rican."

Mimi:
Was he there?

Rhisa:
No, he wasn't.

Mimi:
It was empty.

Rhisa:
There was two sides and I don't know how I didn't... We just couldn't find an office to rent. And my friend who's in the film who plays a doctor, her and her husband, they are both actors. And he said, "Oh, I know a place that you can rent that the daughter, she kind of rents on the weekends. I don't even know if it's legal." And I'm like, "Oh my God, I'll take it, I'll take it." And the guy who helped me produced it, the company, he's like, okay, "I'm going to try to get the price as low as possible." And I get there and I'm like, "Holy shit."

Mimi:
Oh my God. That's weird. That's so serendipitous. That was the world coming together and telling, I don't know. That's when you need to send that to the guy, the neurologist, you need to send the movie to him and be like, "Hey, we filmed it in your office and you saw me. And FYI, just want to let you know, I didn't have HIV."

Rhisa:
Right.

Mimi:
The jerk.

Rhisa:
I obviously have experience racism, but never so like bam, bam in my face. It was just, I don't know.

Mimi:
You know what was a wake up call for me though, was I went to a Lyme doctor here in Connecticut, this was a long time ago. And I walk in with my binder that you do because you're like, they need to see every lab that you've ever taken for five years. And he goes, "I don't need to see your labs." He goes, "Just do me a favor. Just do the sobriety test. Walk across the room." I was like, "Really?" I was like, "Oh, okay." And I go to do it, heel to toe, and I fell over. And I was like, "Oh my God, why did that happen?"

Mimi:
And then he's like, "Well just stand there and lift one leg," try to do the tree pose, whatever. I fell over. And he goes, "Yeah, you have Lyme." Now it's gone into your brain because it's neurological at that point. And I was like, "Oh my God." And I started crying. I was like, "No one's ever asked me that. No one's believed me, no one's asked me." And how do you go from no one believing you that you have Lyme to all of a sudden having it so bad I can't even do a sobriety test.

Rhisa:
I was on a salsa dance team from junior high through high school. And that was the first symptom that hit me because in salsa dancing, there's a lot of spinning. And I used to spin, I was fine. And when I hit 19, it was over. I couldn't it anymore. And I'm like, I don't know what's wrong. That was the part that sent me into the wildest depression because I danced every day.

Mimi:
Yeah. And you just can't do it anymore.

Rhisa:
I can't even walk straight. How am I going to do our performances?

Mimi:
One time, there's another crazy story, trading our crazy stories, but I was taking my son to a lacrosse tournament and I just landed. I did the red eye and I had my newborn with me and I was tired. He fell asleep, she fell asleep. I was like, "Oh, since you're both asleep, let me just pull over." So I pulled over into this parking lot of this Fort McHenry or something that down in Baltimore and I fell asleep. And with that, there's a rap at the door and it's a police officer. And I was like, "Oh my God." He's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "I'm taking a nap. I'm exhausted. I couldn't drive anymore. I had to just shut my eyes." And he was like, "Get out of the car." And I was like, "What are you talking about? I was just taking a nap in a parking lot."

Mimi:
And he's like, "Get out of the car," because he saw my two kids asleep in the back. And with that, another police car pulls up and I'm like, "Oh my God." And I'm like, "No, I'm not getting out of the car. What did I do wrong? He's like, "Get out of the car." I'm like, wait. And then all of a sudden it dawned on me. I'm like, "Do you think I'm passed out on heroin or something, like I just overdosed?" And he's like, "Yes." Because you always read about those things in Baltimore. how all the moms are passed out, whatever. And I was like, oh my God. So I get out of the car. And then all of a sudden I freak because I know I'm not going to be able to pass the sobriety test.

Rhisa:
Oh my God.

Mimi:
So I say to him and I'm like, but okay, I'm not going to pass the sobriety test.

Rhisa:
He's like, "Oh you're not?"

Mimi:
And I was like, "No, because I have Lyme." And I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm going to get arrested, across the country from my family." I started freaking out. And then with that he's like, "Oh don't worry," because as soon as I got out of the car and I stood up, he's like, "If you were on heroin, you would've just fallen. You would've just fallen right to the ground." And I'm like, "Oh my God, thank you." I was freaked out thinking that could've gone bad, real fast. The crazy stories that we have, with these crazy Lyme stories. But anyway, this has been amazing. I wish you the best luck. I cannot wait to watch this movie, because the trailer, I have to do it in a point though, when I'm emotionally going to be able to take it.

Rhisa:
Yeah. I've gotten feedback that it's been a little difficult for some people to watch.

Mimi:
Yeah. I started welling up when I was watching it right before I got on here and I was like, "Okay, I got to turn this off because I can't be sad when I get on here."

Rhisa:
I always tell people like, "I'm not offended if you don't want to watch it."

Mimi:
No, I'll watch it. But it's just emotionally I got to be in the right head space because it's really hard.

Rhisa:
Yeah. I understand. Honestly, for me filming it, was hard to watch. I was like, "What the hell? How is this my life? How did this happen? Why did this happen?" I went through a million emotions filming the actual film. It was just bad, the long hours, my body was hanging on by a thread.

Mimi:
During the filming for the five days.

Rhisa:
Yeah.

Mimi:
Yeah, right.

Rhisa:
Because I actually pushed back my gallbladder removal.

Mimi:
You pushed back your surgery for it?

Rhisa:
Yeah.

Mimi:
Oh my gosh.

Rhisa:
I was like, "I have to film this now because it has to be in the winter." I waited 22 years for a diagnosis, I think I'll live three more weeks.

Mimi:
Right. So this has been amazing. Best of luck to you. So go to Vimeo and, Your Labs Are Normal to watch it and then good luck. And I hope you keep winning more film festivals.

Rhisa:
Fingers crossed, yeah.

Mimi:
Yeah. And then you'll be getting your academy awards someday or the next film, because this is going to lead to many more films.

Rhisa:
I hope so. My friends are like, "Oh my gosh, the CDC or someone's going to your door and arrest you." I have a little spiel at the end of why it's so secretive.

Mimi:
I get it. Okay, awesome. This is amazing. Thank you so much.

Rhisa:
Thank you.

Mimi:
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