Surely you've heard from your mum/ nan/ some random old lady (or man, but I've really only ever heard this from women) that you should never go to bed with wet hair because it will give you a cold. I can tell you now that IT IS AN UTTER LIE. Unfortunately, the results can prove to be far worse.
First off, the common cold is caused by a rhinovirus infection, NOT FROM BEING COLD. Being cold can deplete your immune system, hence making it easier for rhinovirus to take over, but it wont actually be the cause of your cold. I do have a point with this. Keep reading.
This is the rhinovirus
This week from Monday through to today, I've had my end of year Year 10 exams. They're not super, super important like Year 12 ones, but they're still pretty important and quite a pain in the ass to do. My week (beginning on Saturday of last week) was supposed to go like this:
Saturday: Go to friend's place and have a study sesh with her and 2 others. Do book learnin' real good
Sunday: Study on own at home. Clean up the house. Go to band practice. Bring my keyboard home from studio because friend who owns the studio is going to Europe for 2 months. Get exam materials ready. Go to sleep at 10.30 at latest for once in my life
Monday: Wake up at 7ish. Prepare for school. Go to school, do awesomely in my first 3 exams (Being English, Advanced Maths and RE). Walk home with most of the contents of my locker. Study a bit. Sort out some of this years school books. Be a ninja at training. Come home and study for Tuesday's exams. Do piano practice. Shower and de-grossify. Go to sleep at a reasonable hour again.
Tuesday: Wake up at 7ish again. Prepare for school. Go to school, do awesomely in French exam. Read Divergent during free exam period that I'm forced to sit in the exam room for. Do awesomely in Physics exam. Walk home with another load of what was in my locker. Sort more books. Maybe do some more music. Go to sleep at a reasonable hour yet again.
Wednesday (today): Wake up at 7ish again once more FOR THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL FOR THE YEAR!!! Go to school, do awesomely in my last exam; that being History - Contemporary Society. Celebrate finishing by going to the second dodgiest part of town to Waterworld where we were likely to get raped. [Also, here's an interesting fact: Waterworld (the one where we were going) has been shut numerous times because of people getting their legs sliced by razors blades purposefully embedded into the water slide.]). Walk home with remaining contents of my locker. Sort final books and such. Do piano practice + theory homework. Go to piano lesson. Come home and fully celebrate the end of the year by eating lots, watching TV and staying up till around 3am on pinterest and youtube.
That's all I've had planned specifically for the week. Anyway, coming back to my original point, here's how my week actually went:
Saturday: Went to friend's place and had a study sesh with her and 2 others. We did book learnin' real good and it actually did help me on my exams
Sunday: Attempted to study at own home. Hated everything. Spoke to previously mentioned friend on fb. Hastily cleaned noticeable parts of house. Rode bike to her house. Had band practice cancelled because friend and I were too busy studying (surprisingly true) and studio owning friend had to finish packing. Didn't manage to retrieve keyboard. Spoke on phone to study friend till sometime around 11.30pm until she could hear I was getting delirious and forced me to go to sleep.
**Something you should know at this point in the story is last year I got tonsillitis and glandular fever pretty badly and was off school for a total of a bit over 2 weeks, although if it wasn't holidays, it would've been round 3 weeks or more. Since then, whenever I get over-tired, my tonsils flare up and are like "If you don't sleep well for one more night, it's tonsillitis again for you, bitch."
Monday: Woke up around 7ish. Prepared for school. Freaked the hell out trying to find exam materials that worked. Went to school, did (probably) quite well in my English exam. Fucked up my Advanced Maths exam whilst wondering how the hell I ever got into that class (can't wait till next year when I'm dropping down a level). Did awesomely in my RE exam because it's complete bullshit about ethics and good old fashioned values on which we used to rely. Walked home with quite a few school books. Didn't study. Sorted out some books and longed to burn them. Had self esteem crushed by coaches at training through an overly patronising talk. Didn't help that I was generally pissed at the world anyway. Came home and still didn't study. Didn't do piano practice. Decided to have a bath because I couldn't care less about my hair at that point. Held my head underwater for I have no idea how long for. Too angsty to dry myself. Stood naked staring at myself until I got freezing. Got dressed. Chucked on a towel turban and threw a towel over my pillow. Tried to sleep.
This is still part of Monday/ Tuesday. Do you know the sort of dream where you're actually still awake and partly hallucinating, then 'fall' and regain full consciousness and a heart attack? Well this is the horrific recurring state I was in all night. I didn't sleep at all the entire night. On top of this, I was freezing cold, then boiling hot and so on, as well as constantly sweating and being dehydrated. This was far from pleasant. Upon getting up at about 6am because I felt it was reasonable enough, I attempted to have a shower but ended up sitting on the edge of the bath uncontrollably dry reaching, sweating, falling over, not being able to see, being dizzy, having the worst headache I've ever had, being insanely hot, and shaking. In this awful state I managed to get my mum to come assist me, and from this, she prohibited me from going to school which is entirely understandable. I was a bit annoyed at not being able to go to school and do my exams, but I hadn't slept at all and was clearly pretty sick. Mother dearest took me to the doctors and she asked me what was wrong and I said the above, then she went to check my throat and I realised I had completely ignored that my throat was all gross because I'm so used to it being a bitch to me. Anyways, long story short, the doctor said "Yep. You've definitely got pretty bad tonsillitis" and prescribed some pills
then said "If you're not any better by tomorrow, come back and I'll give you an injection of penicillin." Oh joy. My tonsils weren't actually any better today, but because I'd managed to sleep, I felt way better and didn't have to get the injection. Another thing you should know, needles freak me out a fair bit and this needle was likely to be in the ass cheek (no joke). Also, last time I was this sick, I had to have a blood test which resulted in my very first panic attack.
So to carry on:
I missed school on Tuesday, meaning missing my best 2 exams, then today I came to school to do my History exam, but left straight after. The other day our year level coordinator sent us this email about today's end of year celebrations, so I actually am a tad disappointed for leaving school straight after my exam
Tomorrow I'll be going into school for most of the day to finish the exams I missed instead of celebrating the first day of holidays. At least it's now, not when I've comfortably fucked up my sleeping habits by next week.
Super super super super super long story short; don't sleep with wet hair. It won't give you a cold, it will give you one the worst nights 'sleep' ever, screw up your exams and make you have to swallow horse pills through an extensively inflamed throat.
I'm not going to sleep with my hair that wet again.
- A recovering SnailOnABicycle
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