Can you believe it's already mid-June?

My first two photopheresis treatments went well.  It's pretty cool.  I took some pics.  I still think the reflux is a HUGE issue, but since it's like molasses to get me a referral to a GI doc I'm trying to adjust my diet.  My FEV1 is still getting worse.

This is the photopheresis machine (the slow one).  It draws and returns blood for 6 cycles.  My blood was super sticky (thick) so it took a long time for the machine to process each cycle.  The next day was much better.  That is my plasma on the plate.  There are tanning booth bulbs on the top and bottom of the tray/plate.

A horrible pic of me during treatment.

This is a pic of my white blood cells.  They are super clear (yay! I didn't eat too much fat).  They inject Uvadex (the medication for my cells) into my bag of white cells before they get all spread out on the plate.  Then the cells get zapped with the tanning booth.  Then the cells get returned to me.  Kinda like saline... you can taste it (those who can taste saline know exactly what I'm talking about).  They tell me it's the medication/ saline mixture... but it kinda tastes a little like the smell of a tanning booth after you've cooked yourself in there (wha???? I've never used a tanning booth.... riigghhttt...) or after you've singed your arm/hand hairs when grilling.

I went to Portland the weekend before Photopheresis with Stacey.  This is the Japanese Garden.  Gorgeous.  And yes, Portland is weird.  I liked it.

Another gorgeous pic.  The Japanese Maples were amazing.  I have a serious love of Japanese Maples.  One day there will be one in my yard.  And I'll have to live to 100 to see it grow 2 feet (they grow verrry slowly).

You can see Mt. Hood in the background!  And downtown Portland.

The Japanese Maple of my dreams.  Ehrmegherd.  It was breathtaking.

Then we went to the Rose Garden.  Ummm... the pics do not fully capture how insanely massive this is.  It's 4.5 acres.  It was like being in Alice in Wonderland.  And the smell was intoxicating... but I love the smell of roses.  I'm truly an 80 year old woman trapped in a 35 year old body.

No black spot to be found.  I looked.  There were thousands of rose bushes.  10,000 according to The Googler.  It was absolutely amazing.

And here is the giant, mutant zucchini from my garden.  I made 4 loaves of zucc bread from 1/2 that thing.  Yup.  I got over 8 cups of grated zucchini from half of that (the fat end).  I should have weighed it.  

I'm enjoying a nice quiet weekend with some exercise thrown in for good measure.