For about a month now, I've been lounging in my couch while waiting for residency to start on July 1st. I literally have no responsibilities beyond keeping my body and living space clean, and filling out some paperwork. Most of my peers have gone on vacations, but I don't like spending money or going outside. I went on a cruise once and by day three, I was all "I wanna go home and sleep on my bed now".
So I've been writing (on the computer) or playing Fire Emblem on my 3DS. Sure, I've been going to the gym as well, but I'm no Terry Crews. So that's basically an hour every other day. It's not so difficult to keep my apartment clean, and since I'm not doing anything physically or even mentally draining, I don't require much sleep. I didn't do any formal tracking, but I suspect I was spending around fourteen hours a day in front of a screen.
Last week, I got a headache. Frontal, bilateral, throbbing headache, 2/10 on the pain scale, but constant. I didn't think anything of it, besides attributing it to my lack of stable sleeping schedule. Perhaps I'd manage to become sleep deprived while doing nothing.
The headache persisted after a nap, which I found strange, but I decided it must be the beginning of a head cold. I've gotten excited about summer and gone out without a coat/sweater later in the evening, when it's a bit colder. I took an Advil and went to bed "early", whatever that means when you don't have to wake up at any particular time.
Next morning, I woke up with a headache. This is what's referred to as a "red flag" symptom in medicine. At most, it was a 3/10 pain, but a full night's sleep had done nothing for it. A differential built up in my head, starting with most deadly (if unlikely) illnesses . . . and I never got to the "so what" conditions because by this point, I was wondering what I'd do if I had a brain tumor, or even just increased intracranial pressure.
This went on for the rest of the week. I tried Advil once, which did nothing. I had to switch between my computer and my 3DS more often because the headache didn't let me focus (yes, I was still spending every waking moment either playing, or reading/writing). By this point, I've had a constant headache for six days, and blurry vision several times a day. I'm texting my friend who had a brain tumor about how long I'm gonna wait until I show up at the ER and say all the things I need to say to ensure I get a head CT.
I go have dinner with my friend. She's a little bit of a hypochondriac (who had a brain tumor, so that was helpful), and I'm bored an anxious. I got a mild stabbing pain behind my right eye, and we start talking about how I would refuse treatment if it turned out that I had glioblastoma. My final decision is to present to the ER complaining of head trauma and brief loss of consciousness to get a CT without getting a referral if the headache is not gone by morning.
As an aside, I didn't use any screens while spending the evening with my friend.
Next day, I wake up and the headache is gone.
At this point, I've not reached a conclusion. Was it something my friend cooked? Was I in some kind of emotional distress that lessened because I spent time with my friend? Is the tumor sentient and hiding so I don't get a CT scan? What could have happened to my headache?
The headache returns a couple of hours later, after I wasted the morning watching music videos on YouTube. I decide to "take a break" . . . by playing a chapter of Fire Emblem. On my 3DS. Oh.
Anyway. The moral of the story. If you're spending every waking moment in front of some screen and your head hurts, it's probably not a brain tumor.
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