Demon Child (that will eat your soul)

Ok, funny story.

So this is a story that relies on a bit of an inside joke (pretty much between Alan and Cooper), but I will try to give a little background (Cooper, feel free to help correct this). While playing Halo shortly before Clara was born there was a discussion with a fellow player about the significance of having children. He stated that he was not particularly impressed to which Cooper replied "but what if she is the demon child that will eat your soul?" Now this seems out of context here, but trust me, it made perfect sense at the time (I'm sure that Cooper was referring to her eating your soul because you would fall in love with her). The guy we were talking with loved this and continued to repeat, with a raspy, surfer-like voice, "the demon child that will eat your soul". Fun was had by all. The thing that made this a classic was that the guy pops up in the next game that Cooper and I are in and starts saying it again. Keep in mind that there were something like 200,000 playing Halo at the time and that we are randomly assigned to other people in the game, so this was highly improbable. Anyway, Cooper and I thought that this was hilarious, and it has become somewhat of a meme while we play.

So fast forward to two nights ago (1:30 am). Brooke is attempting sleep on the couch in Clara's hospital room, and I am standing by Clara's bed trying to get her to sleep. This is after I had already gotten her to sleep at 10:30 and she was awoken by the chemo nurse at 11. The doctors had given her Ativan to help her deal with nausea (and I think also as a sedative) . Right after this she went from being a somewhat sleepy and grumpy baby to a crazy (read high) baby! She was looking around at all the lights and swinging her head around. Her bp was way up so the nurse thought that she was in pain and gave her morphine. That should have had a sedative effect, but instead she went even crazier (like she was a baby on speed). She was thrashing her arms around and started grunting like you wouldn't believe. Finally, we call the doctor in to see what was going on. She was a little surprised as well, because she thought that Clara would have been asleep from the drugs. About this time, while Clara is grunting, I say "I wonder what is going on," and Brooke rolls over from her sleep and mumbles, "She is the demon child that will eat your soul". I chuckle to myself but wasn't even sure that the resident heard her.

So finally we get Clara to sleep around 3am after a dose of benadryl to take away the itchiness, and she sleeps soundly. The resident thought that she was having a reaction to the morphine that was making her hyper and her face itch so recommended in the future to move to a different drug. I think that she was having a reaction to the Ativan making her hyper, but I agree that the morphine was probably making her itch. So yesterday they moved her to a new drug, Dilaudid, as a pain killer which really seems to work well. We are also trying to avoid the Ativan as much as we can. This drug works MUCH better and Clara seems to actually be in a good mood and was able to play yesterday.

So last night the resident comes by to check on Clara. Brooke was telling her how excited she was for the new drug combo and how well Clara seems to be reacting to it. We did indeed have a great day yesterday. The resident then says "Well, I'm relieved, I know things are bad when a mother calls her baby a demon child!!!" Brooke and I broke out into laughter realizing that the resident had not only heard Brooke the night before but that it had clearly struck her and made her think Brooke thought things were REALLY bad!  So we tell her that it is a long story and an inside joke and that Brooke didn't really think that Clara was a demon child.