Smell

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.