So finally everyone in the house is feeling better. Except now that I feel healthy again I'm exhausted from being sick for a week. That just seems unfair.

At about 9:30am the boys were finally unhooked from all their machines. They were very happy about that.

They celebrated by having blood taken. o_O Then followed that up with some apple juice and a nap. Thank goodness. Tayne had me awake since 4:30am and Dallen was awake since 6am. They were doing much better by this time. Much more alert and much more back to normal.

It was weird to hold Tayne at first without having his tubes and cords inhibit the way I could hold him. I got to hold him close against me and he wrapped his little legs around my waist and put his head on my shoulder, and I hugged him so tight. Dallen just wanted to get out of bed and wander around.

In the morning we all piled into Dallen's bed once I realized they were not going back to sleep. Me in the middle and a boy on each side, and we raised the head of the bed and watched cartoons together (which was something new for them) until breakfast came, at which time we had a picnic on the bed which they loved.

We hung out all morning in the hospital, the boys still sleeping a fair bit, and we were released just after lunch time. All of their stats were back to normal and they seemed well.

The staff there were excellent when it came to the vegan diet. As soon as I mentioned that when they were getting them settled into the room they had a nutritionist sent up and for every meal one of the food staff came up or called and had me tell them exactly what I wanted the boys to have. No questions asked, no snide looks or snotty remarks, just understanding and deliberate intent to accommodate that. I really wasn't expecting it. At best I expected them to be confused about what exactly it meant and offering a vegetarian menu to me assuming that would be good enough. The woman who brought dinner Friday night even said that she checked the vegetable broth was vegan, rather than just assume it was because it's 'vegetable broth'. I really appreciated that.

So, they're home now and doing okay. I'd prefer we never have a repeat of that.

So ....

at 6:30am Friday morning Tayne was lying on the couch with Brandon. I walked over to him and immediately thought, and said out loud, that he didn't seem right. His face just looked .... weird. His eyes were big and wide and he just didn't seem right. Brandon said that he was fine so I lay on the other couch. A few minutes later Tayne made a noise which just didn't seem right.

I was standing over him and he just did not look right. I can't explain it. He didn't seem to be ... here ... even though his eyes were open and he was breathing. I waved my hand in front of his face and he didn't react. His eyes didn't follow my hand. His pupils were HUGE. I grabbed him and started rubbing his face, poking his cheeks, and I tried sitting him up. He acted as if he had no idea of anything. His entire body was limp. His head fell forward, his arms flopped to his sides, and he made strange moaning noises, and the whole time his eyes were HUGE and not tracking anything and he would not blink, ever. I laid him on the floor and he had no reaction to anything. He was just completely and utterly not there. I will never forget that look on his face. I will never forget how very wrong it felt and how I knew that there was something very wrong with him.

I freaked.

I ended up calling 911 and basically told them "something's wrong with my baby". I had been considering taking him to an ER myself but we honestly didn't know where the closest one was and trying to figure that out felt like wasting time. The woman on the phone asked me some questions and had me take his clothes off. They dispatched an ambulance and by the time I'd thrown some things in a bag they were there. Three EMT's came in and two of them looked him over while the third took down information from Brandon. Right before they got there he started tensing up randomly and his arms and fingers would contort and his head would kinda of jerk to the side and he'd make that weird moaning noise. It was creepy. The whole thing was creepy!

The two EMT's said that they didn't really know what was wrong with him and they suggested that I take him to the ER myself, provided I felt I could safely get there. I think they suspected dehydration because of the stomach virus he has/had. I said I could. Then, one of them says, "Y'know, I think we should take him. I just don't feel right about this. Something doesn't seem right.". So they had me carry him out to the ambulance wrapped in a blanket and they strapped me onto the gurney with him in my arms. They had me hold the oxygen mask over his face during the ride.

At this point Zavien was the only one who had been awake. Cayden and Dallen were still in bed.

About 5 minutes into the ride my phone rings. I answer. It's Brandon. "Dallen is the same!!" I hear him urgently yell into the phone. My heart drops. I panic. I look at the EMT's and tell them. They look puzzled and lost. They went up to the driver and talked to him, asked me some questions, and had me tell Brandon to call 911 and have them take Dallen, and that they'd try to coordinate them both ending up at the same place.

Apparently Brandon had gone upstairs to check on Dallen right after we left because a very strong poop smell was coming from up there. He walked in, Dallen was facing away from him, and when he peered over him to see his face his eyes were wide open and he had that same blank creepy look on his face and wasn't responding to anything. He had pooped all over himself and his bed, literally covered in it. Brandon rinsed him off in the bath, called Brian to come over immediately to watch Cayden and Zavien, and called 911. He laid him on a towel to dry him off, he was still completely unresponsive, and as the ambulance arrived he started vomiting. They immediately started doing stuff to him and took him and Brandon to meet us at the same ER here at Providence.

In the meantime we arrived at the ER. They wheeled us in and shunted me onto the hospital bed, still with Tayne in my arms. They worked on him while I held him. They initially had no idea what was wrong. They inserted an IV, took his temp, blood pressure, and took some blood, as well as took some chest xrays and put in a cathetar to get some urine. He didn't react at all when she put the cathetar in. The whole time they're doing all of their stuff he's limp and out of it and it was really creepy and I was freaking out inside like I've only ever done once before in my life, and that was when I was pregnant with Tayne and in the hospital when his heart kept dropping and stopping right before they took him out. I'd never felt fear like that before then and I hadn't since. Until today. I was afraid of everything. Of him dying. Of him staying like that. Of them not being able to do anything. Of them not figuring out the problem before it was too late.

After a short while a call came through somehow that "his brother", who was still being transported, had reported a very low blood sugar level - 24. Normal is between 70 and 150. The EMT's that got Tayne didn't check his blood sugar level.

The nurses checked Tayne's and his was "below 20", though they never told me what it was exactly. They immediately started shooting him up with Dextrose (basically just straight sugar), and after just a minute or so he started blinking just a little and his eyes started moving a little and he seemed just a little more ... right. After another short while he mutters Mommeee, and like that day he was born when they finally got him out and I heard him cry that first time, I felt like exploding into tears because in that moment I knew that everything was going to be okay.

Shortly after that the ambulance arrived with Dallen and Brandon. I think they had already given him Dextrose in the ambulance, so once they got there he was pretty much already back to normal, but he was still a little confused when I saw him the first time.

So, in all, they're okay. Their blood sugar is back to normal but they've been admitted for monitoring. Their heartrates are still both a little high too, and they're both still very sleepy. They aren't awake much but when they are they seem like their normal selves, though a little more mellow. They've still got IV's and plugs and cords everywhere and a splint on their arm, but they're tolerating it all fairly well. Of course, they are sleeping a lot.

The nurse told me that anything below 20 when it comes to blood sugar levels is basically on the brink of death and that a person can't maintain that low of a level for very long at all before they die. She said we did the exact right thing by calling when we did. I read this online - "Very low blood sugar levels (below 20 mg/dL) can develop quickly (within 10 to 15 minutes) and are emergency situations requiring immediate care. Without immediate care, a very low blood sugar level can lead to coma and death."

Eep. Glad my boys didn't die.

Wish I didn't have to stay in a hospital tonight.

And also today, after everything was sorted out a little and more calm Tayne leaked through his diaper and I ended up with poop all over my pants. And I left my cell-phone in a cab.

I can haz calmburger?