LINK: wakanda foreverz
A couple of years ago, my cousin—my dad’s brother’s daughter—called me out of the blue. She knows I hate talking on the phone, so I picked up immediately, assuming it must be serious. Her voice was frantic.
“Rojie, I need help.”
She and others were at Coachella, and her cousin from her mother’s side, Rebecca, was acting strange. “She’s seeing colors bouncing around and talking to people who aren’t there,” she said, voice trembling.
Work mode kicked in. “Did she take anything?” I asked cause Coachella is known for alcohol and drug consumption aside from the music.
“She just smoked weed,” my cousin said quickly.
I paused. “What else?”
“That’s all.”
“Are her pupils constricted or dilated?” I asked.
“She’s wearing sunglasses,” she said, almost whispering.
From the symptoms she described, I could already piece it together. “It sounds like she might have had meth, ecstasy, and THC in her system,” I told her. “Maybe even a hit of H, but you need to get her to the nearest emergency department ASAP to be further evaluated.
They tried to coax Rebecca into the car, but before they could, she bolted—sprinting off with no sense of direction, no phone (her batteries died), and no shoes.
“Call 911,”I told them. She could run into traffic or collapse from dehydration. She needs help STAT.”
Thirty minutes later, the police arrived. Then my cousin got a call—it was Rebecca.
“Where are you?” they asked.
“I’m at Wakanda,” she said. Apparently, a kind stranger let Rebecca use his phone to make this call.
They thought she was joking. She couldn’t be in Wakanda. That place isn’t even real. They asked for street names, landmarks, anything.
“I’m at Wakanda,” she repeated.
An hour later, they found her with the assistance of the local authorities. She was sitting on a curb outside a high school with a massive black panther mural painted across the outside of the building. Wakanda. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.
The police placed her on a 5150 hold and took her to a local hospital. Her tox screen came back positive for meth, ecstasy, and THC. No heroin. My cousins were stunned that I’d been able to guess what she’d taken, just from her symptoms.
Even with antipsychotics, her hallucinations persisted (auditory, visual, and tactile). She couldn’t eat or care for herself, so they placed her on a 5250 hold, another 14 days. Slowly, she improved, but not enough to go home.
Her parents drove down from Northern California, demanding her to be discharged into their care. Eventually, they released her and was placed on disability from her IT job, and sent home under their care. They wanted to meet with me before they went back up home, to figure out what happens next.
We sat down and I explained everything—the importance of staying sober, being medication compliant, and undergo talk therapy. I told them that if she relapsed, the psychosis could be more difficult to treat and her symptoms could be exacerbated. They nodded, eyes heavy with worry and fear.
After that, I lost touch. But from what my cousin tells me, Rebecca made a full recovery. She went back to work, got married, and continues to smoke THC. And Rebecca still goes to Coachella year after year.
Leave a Reply