The obligatory “Brian is Dead” photo. You know, the one that makes Barb yell “Stop that and smile already!”

Okay, fine. Here’s a smile.

Say hello to my little friend. This is the little mechanical beast that sucks out my blood, steals its precious, precious stem cells, then pumps them back into me.

Let’s see you do that, artoo.

Me and my new best buddy. I think I’ll call you Henry.

The coolest part was watching Peggy put this whole thing together from her plastic tube-filled hobbykit. Quite an operation they’ve got going on here.

No, that’s not a tequila sunrise. I originally thought this was the bag collecting my stem cells and grew quite worried when it stayed the same level throughout the whole process. Turns out this is just one of the intermediary bags. The stem cell bag was bigger and hidden off to the side out of view.

Sneaky.

Okay, so maybe it is tequila sunrise in the bag.

Here’s my right arm with the blood draining from my body. This is the dreaded Warm Tube. Surprisingly, this isn’t actually hooked up to an IV needle. Instead, it’s connected to a rather large butterfly needle (hidden under the gauze).

If you don’t know what that is, rest assured, it’s interesting. I promise.

Here’s my blood going back into my left arm. This was actually one of the many phases the incoming blood goes through. Most of the times, it was just as dark as the outgoing line. Occasionally it would go through these lighter spurts. I think that’s when they were putting more badass into me.

No, I’m not gritting my teeth – that’s a smile. This is fun, dammit!

Note the brilliant selection in shirtwear – red & patterned, just in case there’s an… accident.