2 months ago
39
LIke the headline says...it's happy times in my household! What follows is a LENGTHY story of my trials and tribulations. It mostly serves little purpose for you all...it is just me telling my own story, which feels good. Because I am very happy with what has happened, and intrigued by the chnages that have been wrought.
When I was in my early twenties, my sense of smell (and taste) started to diminish dramatically. It seemed like I had some sort of very low-grade allergy , all the time...my nose and sinuses felt stuffy, but although I blew my nose constantly, there was no real discharge....there was nothing to blow out.
I consulted ENT specialists and allergists, to no avail. Steriods, and other treatments, sometimes produced immediate positive results, but they never persisted. Previous to this, I had had a severe concussion, from a bicylcing accident involving head trauma, so doctors of my acquaintance suggested that perhaps my cranial nerves had been damaged, or severed, and that was the cause of the loss of smell. Other theories involved a tiny crack in my skull, allowing cerebrospinal fluid to leak into my nasal passages; but this serious condition was not borne out by any testing.
Anyways, throughout my 20s and 30s, my sense of smell went from "normal" to perhaps 5/100 or 10/100...it's tough to measure when the sense dissapears. I "monitored" the situation by listening to friends and family comment on smells they could sense, and observing how much of the smell I could sense, or not sense. I was especially popular for toilet-related repairs, which I could conduct with no hint of discomfort, to which observers said things like "that's absolutely crazy that you can't smell that!". Trusted friends were encourged to tell me if my body odour was offensive somehow. You learn to cope. :-)
For the years and decades that passed, a fleeting sense of smell often re-appeared, but then went away. Anytime I got a brief reprieve, ii was a wonderful time. I would smell...baking! Or cinnamon, or anything, and life would be better. Call it a brief period of 20/100 smell, where I could smell things like ...gasoline...lemons...fresh bread...maybe, MAYBE bathroom business! But it never persisted. The mild stuffiness, and the useless nose blowing persisted. At some point, I adopted using handerchiefs, which cut down greatly on the amount of tissue I went through...I never really used up a tissue, I could blow my nose 5 times and the tissue would just be wrinkled, but you can only store so many semi-used tissues on your person before it's a big problem. Handerchiefs were at least durable.
Basically, I got used to the condition, and later on, rarely thought about it, in any critical manner. This was life.
All along, I was never really sure about my sense of taste. I figured it was greatly diminished, but it was (as usual) hard to measure. I very much enjoyed cooking, but tasting dishes? A trial. No subtelty, no real anything..cooking was still enjoyable, but lacked a lot.
When COVID happened, as we all know, many many people were afflicted by a loss of smell (and taste). I read many sad stories, and some recovery ones, and heard about many treatment approaches that I had not considered before. I pursued nothing, I was very much in my acceptance phase. But the stories at least re-assured me that others who had the same problem felt keenly about their loss, as I myself did.
In the last couple of years, I developed some nasal polyps too...large enough that they could entirely block my breathing on one nostril. My reaction to these was, at first, just "another burden to bear".
So. In November 2024, I was farm-sitting for some friends of mine for 2 weeks, taking care of their dogs and chickens while they were on vacation. Somehow, I contracted some sort of flu bug. The treatment that made sense to me at the time was Nightime Neocitrin, so that I could get some rest, and be sort of knocked out (hopefully). What followed was a night of wakefulness...I was coughing up so much phlegm, and sundry, I had never ever expereinced anything like it in my memory. It was sort of miserable at the time, used up all the handerchiefs I had at my bedside, but I knew from experience that come the morning, and the dawning of the light, everything would probably be better. So I didn't fret that much, just knuckled down to get through it.
And in the morning, I felt a lot better. In fact...I felt a LOT better. I could actually breath with ease through my nose, which was a rare occurence, and noteworthy, and certainly welcome. And as the days progressed, the ease of breathing persisted....hmmm. And so did my appreciation of smells...the meals I cooked were had smells!...and visits out to the barnyard where the cattle were lounging were...aromatic! Not something I had really noticed in past visits. And cheese...there was some nice cheese in the fridge, and when I opened some and left it out to sit, upon eating it, it was suddenly the best cheese I had tasted in years!
Over the years, visits on holiday, or frquent camping trips, changes in environment, had often produced fleeting improvments in the ability to smell. This was the conclusion I reached...being at the farm, in the "fresh air", had given me a small taste of the better life. But this was not the case.
After my return to my own home, the wonderful abilities persisted! I could actually breath through my nose...keep my mouth entirely closed while chewing food...wake up in the morning and be able to breathe deeply. And the smells! It's really so that the sense of smell is strongly affiliated with memory. Because as soon as my sense of smell came back, I started smelling things that I had not smelt for 30+ years, but immediately knew what they were! All the mundane smells, all the wonderful smells, and yes the bad ones too...every single one of them started flooding back into me, and I was grateful for all of them!
Tastes too. Cooking was an entirely different proposition. My spices? I think I must have been sensing them about 2/100 for so long, now they were popping like crazy? I could smell them in my kicthen without opening jars, or even cupboards! Cinnamon? Crazy? Star Anise? Crazy. Lemon, cooked rice, flour, cherries, milk, you name it, they were all off the charts...can you imagine? It was indescribable...it was just...wonderful. It still is.
And while the improvement in my cooking life, and eating life, and food shopping life and satisfaction from all that has just ballooned...there are massive improvements in other parts of my life. I am happier. I am more engaged with the world. I am reaching out to more friends and family. I am kinder. I am just so much more positive in my outlook on life, it's nuts. And it's not because I think to myself "it's really great to have this sense back, I should be more appreciative"...it's just happening.
Take for one instance...my dreams. I don't know about your dreams (sleepy dreams, not "I wish I were a..." dreams), but as a 56 year old man, my own dreams are in a bit of a rut. I usually (always?) dream the same dreams, with the same characters and plots and outcomes...it's rar-ish to have a new dream. And as dreams do (at least for me) I ofen face repeating obstacles that I just cannot overcome...taking the test in the classroom that I have not studied for....looking for that one thing that cannot be found...whatever.
Well. My dreams have changed! Many nights, I actually have gone on brand new adventures, with new casts of characters! And had a lot of fun doing so! And two nights ago, I actually achieved one of my long-term dream objectives! I have been trying to get to the registrar's office at my dream university for years, to just get a course schedule for my classes so that I could actually attend them! In my dreams. Never came close. Until 2 nights ago, when my real-life univeristy pal Chris came with me, and we made it past the obstacles, and we went to the registrar's office, and I found out when my dream classes were! Check that off the list!!
And that's my story, so far. It's been about 4 weeks of regaining my sense of smell (and taste). I'm looking forward to the future with great relish!
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