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.