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title: Headaches

date: 2023-11-02T01:04:00+09:00

---

It's usually time to give up, but strangely enough, this headache stuck around. It seems to want to show me the error of my ways.

I don't know what I did so wrong, but time has taught me that there is no business in this kind of pain.

I can only wait, humbled, and hope that the plague will pass with as little damage as possible.

What's different about this pain, though, is that unlike other headaches that creep up on you, I have a clear idea of when and where it started. Last Saturday evening, I was returning home from a walk along the Bulgwangcheon Stream for exercise. I should have gone to the restroom when my wife and I left the house after dinner, but I forgot. I felt a little uncomfortable when I rounded the turnaround point near Susaek, but normally it's a 40-minute walk from that point to home. That's plenty of time and distance without stopping to use the restroom along the way, but that day was different because I was wearing too little clothing. The temperature dropped suddenly and frighteningly before the sun went down, and I realized that this could be dangerous, but I didn't stop, arrogantly thinking that, as a rule of thumb, I could make it home, even if it was a little harder.

If I had gone straight home, everything would have been fine. On the way, my wife and I split up and she decided to visit her family and I decided to go home and prepare dinner, so I spent a little time at the grocery store to buy some side dishes for dinner, and that's what caused the disaster. Suddenly, I was afraid that it would be unbearable. But now I had no choice. The walk from the grocery store to my house took about five minutes at a brisk pace. There are no known restrooms along the way. By the time I reached the underground parking lot at a brisk, almost running pace, my nerves were on fire.

It wasn't until I stepped into the elevator that I realized I was panicking, and that's when my head suddenly started to hurt. I could hear the blood rushing to the top of my head, and with each pounding pulse, the headache grew more and more intense, until by the time I opened the front door and stepped through, I was almost passing out, not from a need to use the restroom, but from a headache.

Despite the peacefulness after the storm, this pain has been making its presence felt for several days now, as if I've suffered a major internal injury. The cause of this headache seems clear. It's as if the blood suddenly rushed to my head and startled my blood vessels. I'm reminded that when presidents faint in dramas, it's not because they lack reality. One type of headache medicine doesn't work, so I have to mix several types to get the best effect. I can't take my usual acetaminophen, so I'm taking aspirin and dexibuprofen in addition. But I can't say I'm completely out of the woods. The headaches still come back when the medicine wears off. It's not as bad as it was the first day, but it's still there, enough to threaten my peaceful routine and enough to interfere with my concentration.

My wife urges me to go to the doctor. But I can't count the number of times I've been to the doctor with a headache and been told that they couldn't find anything wrong with me. I'm sure this time will be no different, and they'll just give me a prescription for a headache pill. It's not that I don't trust doctors, but I feel like this is something I'm just going to have to live with until I die. What can I do, I look like this...