It wasn’t until I lost my sense of smell that I missed it. It was just something I took for granted, as with all the senses. How did I lose it? I had a long standing nasal problem which wasn’t properly diagnosed for years. Gradually, my sense of smell left me.
It was a little embarrassing,
as my job as an Environmental Health Officer involved assessing complaints of
smell and odour. If you can’t smell these things, how can you assess them?
Enjoyment of food can also
be a bit difficult because if your sense of smell goes, then your sense of
taste is affected. In the end, food has no ‘colour’ and the pleasure that you
get from having a good meal leaves you. It’s just a meal, period.
Then there’s the fear that
you yourself might smell, either through sweating or something unsavoury having
dropped on you. I had long given up wearing perfume because this nasal
condition made me sneeze if I wore any, so, at times, I was apt to feel a
little ‘naked’, and worried that people might reject me.
Losing my sense of smell
mattered to me. I couldn’t smell my husband, my dog, my grandchildren, the
smell of grilled bacon, a pot of coffee, flowers, the pavements in the summer
after a shower of rain, my home, nothing. It all felt very blank.
Then I had an operation
and joy of joys, my sense of smell returned. It was strange that it did
actually, because operations to remove nasal polyps usually mean that you lose
your sense of smell. But no, my sense of smell was well and truly there. And
over the past few weeks, it has been getting better, more defined and
sensitive. I fear now that it will go again, but I’m enjoying it and making the
most of it while I have it.
The funny thing is that I
thought that we smelt things all the time. Well we probably do, but not
consciously. A car will go past me and I smell the fumes from its exhaust; I
walk into a chemist’s and am enthralled by the smell of perfume (and no
sneezing!!); I go into a supermarket and can sniff the wonderful aroma of bread
and my husband cooks a meal and I enthuse over the taste of garlic and other
additions to the meal. It has quite literally lit up my life.
