Guess what I found out on Tuesday! Okay. I'll tell you. It's not like that day a few years ago when I discovered that ENGLAND is an ISLAND! Nothing so earth-shattering and mind-boggling. And I didn't find out from a teenage Pony. This discovery was revealed by a certain relative through matrimony who happens to have been a local elected official.
I AM A FREAK!
Okay. That wasn't said in so many words. Maybe it was not so much even implied. But the result of our discussion has led me to believe this is fact.
We'll call my enlightener XM. I think you know why. Last fall, XM had the VIRUS. I don't dispute that. He was ill, and had the test, which showed a positive result. I haven't really talked to him since then, until Tuesday, when I stopped by the house to drop off something. There's another story there that will show up someplace.
Anyhoo... as I sat in Dirty Dirty T-Hoe, chatting with XM, talk turned to his illness. At the time, I'd been in telephone contact with his wife my relative, who relayed that XM wasn't feeling all that bad, but had isolated himself in their camper. Don't you worry about XM! It had all the amenities of home. It's not like he lived in a camper shell mounted on the back of a pickup truck.
Anyhoo... XM said that his illness was way different from a cold.
"I lost my taste and smell! It was terrible. I was cooking something in the microwave, and saw smoke, and I had to wonder, 'Is that just steaming? Or is it on fire?' I couldn't tell! I couldn't smell a thing. If the house had been on fire, I couldn't have smelled it."
"Oh. I lose my taste and smell every time I have a cold. It IS terrible! And by that I mean the TASTE part! I hate it when I can't taste my food."
"This was so much worse! When I have a cold, I can always blow my nose, and get a whiff of smells. And be able to taste."
"WHAT? I can't!"
The conversation took a turn to other events of his quarantine, so I let it go. But I couldn't help dwelling on that revelation as I drove home.
Doesn't EVERYONE lose taste and smell with a cold? Or am I the only FREAK that it happens to? I don't want to doubt XM. I fully believe he was sick with the VIRUS. But it blows my mind that when he has a regular cold, he can blow his nose and get his taste and smell back! Is that possible?
See, the way it goes for me, and believe me, I had more that my fair share of colds during my first 10 years of teaching... I always lose those senses on about day 3-4 of a cold. The snot goes from runny and drippy to where it stays in my nose, but my sinuses are clogged. I have that muffled way of speaking. I have to chew with my mouth open to breathe.
Even after I start to feel better on about day 6 or 7, the stuffiness stays. I might get to where I can breathe through my nose. But my sinuses are still swollen. No smell or taste. THAT'S when it's so frustrating. I consider my cold to be over, but I can't enjoy my food again. Sometimes it's 12 days or a little more, from the onset of the sniffles, before I can smell and taste.
Believe you me, I've tried everything! Blowing my nose being first on the list. It doesn't make me able to taste and smell, although it may get rid of some clogging snot. It's the swelled sinuses. I've had a modicum of success with eating SALSA or FRANKS ORIGINAL RED HOT SAUCE before each bite of food. It doesn't fully bring back all the levels of taste, but I can usually tell what I'm eating. That works over half the time, but not every time.
Surely EVERYBODY loses taste and smell for a few days during a cold. Again, I'm not calling XM a liar. I fully believe he had the VIRUS and was ill from it. HOWEVER... if he can regain taste and smell during a regular cold from simply blowing his nose, he's a MEDICAL MIRACLE!
Or else I'm a FREAK.
9 comments:
I might have occasionally lost my sense of taste/smell, but nothing so drastic that it was terribly noticable. In fact, I say "I might have" because I'm not sure it ever happened...
... which leads me to believe you're a freak.
I've had so few colds in my life I can't say whether I lose taste and smell or not, but I would think not. I had the flu about seven years ago, first time ever and hopefully the last, but could still smell and taste even though I felt like dying at the time.
I would venture to say that with the long-term sinus swelling and stuffiness, it isn't "just a cold". I suspect you have unknown allergies, like hayfever, which doesn't always occur only in spring. For instance I am allergic to mould and can smell it in mouldering garden mulches, bathroom drain pipes and other odd places, it makes me cough as if having an asthma attack, so I take antihistamines to stop the coughing. I am also allergic to the "heady" scents of certain flowers, the night-blooming jasmine, where the scent is released at dusk or soon after and hangs heavy in the air for several blocks until the sun rises. Also the blasted Oriental Lilies the supermarkets love to sell in bunches and are always right by the entrance gate! Both of those plants cause stuffy sinuses and migraine headaches if I don't take antihistamine soon enough.
I suggest examining your surroundings and taking notes. when you have the swollen sinuses, where have you been and what were you smelling? Keep track and you might find a pattern.
Sioux,
OH MY GOSH! Now it has been VALidated! I'm a freak.
Seriously. That happens to me with EVERY cold that goes through the usual progression. Runny nose, congestion, cough. During the congestion and cough stages, I can't taste or smell.
It's a routine. Throughout the day, I will try to sniff assorted things, like my wrist, or shirt collar, or purse, to see if maybe my smell is returning. It's all or nothing. If I can identify what I'm smelling, I know that I will be able to TASTE again! Surely it has not been COVID that I had every time!
River,
Sweet Gummi Mary! That is DOUBLE VALidation! Such a blow to learn that I AM THE FREAK, and not XM!
Make sure you put this on Riverpedia. Not that I am a freak, but about the allergy connection. Genius used to take Zyrtec for allergies. He either grew out of it, or it resolved ONCE HE LEFT HOME. Two years into college, he got off it. He had a DUST allergy, I think. Which is highly possible for me, too. It's worse in the winter when I'm inside.
I also have an allergy to goldenrod, I think. There used to be a patch of it next to where I parked at Newmentia. When I was leaving there midday to teach at Lower Basementia, I'd get a snotty coughing fit on the way, and shortly after arrival.
Also, I feel like I am suffocating with certain candles burning, lit by Farmer H, possibly to try and kill me...
I had the flu in 1990, and felt like I was dying. But the tastelessness and smelllessness was the same as a regular cold. That's when I resolved to get a flu shot every year. Until that last one settled the inflammatory response in my knees.
Get yourself tested for allergies to find out what is causing the problem, with Genius being fine once he eft home, it might be something in your home that you can fix or get medication for. I understand about the candles, there are some scented ones I can't breathe near for more than a minute.
River,
I would imagine it's dust, for sure. Who knows what else. Every time I start eating a meal, no matter what the food, my nose runs! My mom was like that, too. It didn't happen to me as a kid, but it does now.
I have never lost my sense of smell or taste. I have had times where things tasted "off" due to a cold, but I could still tell you what I was eating. And smell ... I can smell too well!!
Dust in itself is not an allergen, the problem there is the dust mites that live in it. The running nose could be from the steam of heated foods loosening up any sinus congestions, similar to breathing in steam over a bowl of hot water with a towel over your head, with vicks vaporub in the hot water, like Grandma used to make you do when you had a cold.
Kathy,
OH NOOOOO! A THIRD VALidation that I'm a freak! I swear, I thought EVERYBODY lost complete smell and taste with every cold, just like me! Now I feel cheated for all those times delicious food was wasted on snotty old me. Good to know that you still smell good when you're sick...
***
River,
I do it with dust outside, too, when a passing vehicle kicks it up on the gravel road. Drippy nose and throat-clearing. My grandma slathered that VICKS on my neck and chest, and wrapped me in a blanket, and sat me in front of a blazing fire! It DID make me feel better.
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