Shower Conundrum

It happens from time to time.
Where my headaches that I get, ratchet up from like a 6 or 7 up to like an 11 or so.

The type of headaches, where your head...definintely aches, it pounds it pulses. You can feel your heart beat, the tension causes your stomach to get all unhappy, you breathe in short bursts. Trying to not move, trying to not make the pain worse, as movement can bring a spike in the headache.

Last night...was one of those 14 on the scale headaches.

It started way back around lunch time,
When I dealt with waaay too many people wanting me to catch fish, for too long. A couple of hours straight.
The strain got to me.

It was more than that though, stress from roommates, lack of good sleep, hunger...
Basically everything after lunch time contributed to this headache.

To the point where I called it an early night and headed for bed.
Hoping that some sleep would fix my headache.

It didn't.
I woke up a few hours later.
With it still there.
With it worse.
Feeling sick, nauseous, skull splitting.

I spent an hour trying everything I could think of to get rid of said headache.

To no avail.

Which left me with one more option really.
Taking a hot shower.
To relax my muscles, wash away the energies of the day, just be wet so my body could cool down.

The problem?
It was like 2 am in the morning.

And my roommate doesn't like me to take showers after like...10pm.
-Unless she's still awake....
But at that point in time...
I had no idea when she and my other roommate had gone to bed.
It could have been at 11 (as they were up after 10 when I went to bed)
Or it could have been like 30 minutes ago.

I had no way of knowing.
No way of knowing if she was still awake, in deep sleep, or a light sleep stage.

I'm nice enough to not want to wake her up.
Hence, I try to avoid the shower solution.

But last night....
Nothing else was working.

So, even though it made me feel guilty. -which no surprise, isn't good for one already suffering from a headache.

I went and took a shower.
I tried to not be too long.
I think it was only like 10 minutes?
If I had my way I would have done it longer.
But I didn't want to antagonize my roommate longer than necessary, if she was still awake, or had woken up because of the running water.
Just long enough to get my muscles warm, for me to be wet....

And like a minute after the water stopped.

I heard banging/knocking on the wall.
Guilt me automatically assumed that it was my roommate.
Though I suppose it could have been any of the apts around me, though why they'd knock when they hadn't before......
I assumed it was the roommate.
Which again, didn't make me feel good, which didn't help me at all when I already was feeling horrible.

Still, I pushed the thought from my mind.
Managed to relax enough to finally get to sleep and have the headache fade away.

And managed to survive my work day, even if I wasn't at 100% still.

I even had a bit of energy when I came home...
*sighs* Until I encountered my roommate.
We had a conversation...she had a headache.
And I was like "Oh, I know how that feels."
and she was like "Oh is that why you took a shower at 2 am?"
Y_Y Ugh.
Guilt and stress came washing back in.
As she said it in a "how can you be so inconsiderate" sort of way.

It just got my defenses up.
Like...she knew I had a headache, as I stated so before I went to bed.
She was told when she moved in that I would sometimes need to take early morning showers to get rid of said headaches when they happened.
So, it should come as no surprise that I had to take a 2 am shower to get rid of horrible headache.

I wasn't inconsiderate.

I try to avoid that solution when possible because I don't want to wake up my roommates.
It literally stressed me out finally deciding to go take said shower.
because I didn't want to wake her up. Didn't want anyone else to know I was suffering.

And she just came across like I'd been the biggest jerk ever.

Ugh. I honestly don't need more guilt tripping. Especially when it's an 'after headache' lull where more stress can cause another headache.

And guess what?
Yah. I got another headache.
T_T
Ugh.
Make it go away....

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi