Cold Turkey Or Possession?

Last night, an hour before I was about to sit comfortably and catch the Amazing Race Asia finals I got a call from my cousin informing me that one of our other cousin was in bad shape in the hospital. I immediately asked what happen thinking he was involved in an accident or something cos he's the youngest of the lot.

And my cousin replied that he was in a stroke like condition. I was shocked. I mean he's only 31 years old! But I wasn't all that surprised. This cousin of mine was someone I posted about quite a while back who was on and off the drug habit and as far as I knew, he was off the habit for years now. But it wouldn't surprise me if he was back on it and this was somehow related.

My cousin told me to come by the hospital as soon as I could cos he was really in bad shape. So I headed to the hospital emergency ward. The thing is when my cousin told me that he was in a stroke like state, I pictured him lying in bed and maybe not being able to move a certain part of his body or something like that.

But when I walked in the ward, what I saw startled me. There on the hospital bed was my cousin but he was far from lying down immobilized or anything. He was sitting up in a crouched position with his head twisted 45 degrees (which looked awfully painful to me) and his hands bent at the elbows with his fingers making the shape of claws and his tongue sticking in and out like a snake!

I was really in a state of shock and if I was not on the tanned side, you probably would see my face turn pale. That wasn't the signs of someone with a stroke. He looked awful, scary even. And he was groaning incoherently at times. I steeled myself up (I am the worlds biggest coward, mind you) and approached closer to him. He sensed my presence and he turned his body with his his head still stuck in the 45 degree angle and looked at me.

I could see recognition on his face and while looking at me he started groaning again and through the incoherent mumblings, I could hear the words pain, pain being mention over and over. That boy was in excruciating pain. When I asked his parents what was really wrong with him, they said that the doctors came over and checked him and they found nothing medically wrong with him. Even a brain scan failed to show anything wrong with him, medically that is.

They're suspecting it's a psychological thing cos according to them he should be fine. They just seemed baffled by his condition and have referred a psychiatrist to him. The thing is, according to my mom who was there already, when the doctors examine him, he's okay, his neck moves back to the normal position and and his bent hands and all that returns to normal. Though he still can't speak properly and breathes very hard, he looks normal.

But once the doctors leave, he kinda reverts back to weird positions, his face will change, his eyes will roll and bulge and his tongue will do the snake thing again and to be honest, it's scary like hell! To me, he doesn't need a psychiatrist, he needs a priest cos he looks and behaves like he's been possessed! The facial expressions, the uncomfortable and painful looking positions he gets into, the groans, the mumblings, the anger (he screams that the doctors are stupid and stuff) and then he breaks down and cries that he's in pain.

What made me lean towards him being possessed is that when they took him up to the rooms for admission overnight, the room is shared by 3 other patients and the patient directly opposite my cousin is a pastor and he heard all the groaning and saw the condition of my cousin, he said to us that maybe we should pray for him. He even took his bible out and started saying some prayers of his own and that was when you should have seen the change in my cousin. He got even worse, he screamed and contorted himself even worse and no amount of calming could make him relax.

And when that pastor finally stopped praying and reading from the bible, he calmed down considerably. Then my auntie put a rosary around his neck and he started again and after some time, he calmed down again. Now, it could just be a pure coincidence or not, but to me, that looks like a classic case of someone being possessed. I've seen a person possessed before when I was very young and this sure looks the same. Either that or he's back to his drug habits and he can't get his 'fix' so he's probably going cold turkey or something.

The opinions are divided between us. A few of us think it's a possession thing and the other half thinks it's a drug thing. But whatever it is, I hope something is done for the poor fellow cos possession or drugs, he is suffering from excruciating pain and it saddens me considerably to see him in this condition. They're getting a priest to come and see him later today and as much as I'd like to be there, I have some work to catch up on. Or maybe I'm just too much of a coward.

I grew up with him, I remember playing toys and stuff with him when he was a baby and to see someone so much younger than you like this is not a nice feeling. He's a decent boy, just mixed around with the wrong crowd and had a few bad breaks in his life which lead him astray. He tried to put his life back in order but kept getting influenced by the wrong crowd over and over again, He finally did kick the habit (at least I hope so), got a job and all that and to see him like this really hurts. I hope he pulls through. Some hope and a little prayer wouldn't hurt, ya?
.