So, I've had this cold for about a week now. It came on about eight or nine days ago, but really started hitting hard about six days back.
I've been on the upswing for the last forty-eight hours, but there's something that I found I lost over last weekend: my sense of smell.
I noticed that meals weren't very enjoyable, but with the coughing and fever, was too distracted to notice why.
Then, I had a soda a couple days back. I took a sip, and thought that the syrup pump on the fountain was out of whack. Then, I realized all of a sudden that I hadn't really tasted anything when I drank my coffee earlier. And that the bowl of cereal I'd had the previous afternoon was stale and tasteless, or something... so, I took a bite of my breakfast sandwich, and realized that I couldn't taste it at all. Not a bit.
Another sip of soda, and I couldn't taste anything. Ditto for the fried potato clots; I couldn't taste the salt on 'em or anything.
Now, the funny thing here is that my nose isn't plugged up at all. I have been able to breathe through it just fine for most of this cold. It never did get terribly stuffed up.
Over the last couple days, I've tried a bunch of stuff to see what I can and can't taste or smell. I've found that this condition would have come in handy in grade school, when the teachers were washing my mouth out with soap; I can't taste it at all now. The delicious candied pecans at work are just stuff that's kinda' a bitch to chew now (although at what they cost, my employer won't mind me not eating them). Coffee = hot water; my Drakkar Noir is now like cool water spray (although I don't think I'll try it in my eyes).
There's almost no food I've found that has any taste to it whatsoever. I tried vinegar, honey, salt water, and Sriracha hot sauce. They're astringent, mildly sweet, mildly salty, and moderately spicy. Even strong coffee isn't bitter enough to register.
Since I can't smell anything, I'm on a two-a-day shower regimen. Better safe than sorry...
My mom was talking to me today about this, and telling me how sorry she feels. And it hit me that I'm really not too upset about this at all. First of all, I expect my sense of smell to return. It's probably just laid low by this cold.
Second, even if it never comes back, there's a hell of a lot of stuff I'd rather trade God for it. Such as:
seventy pounds of weight gain from quitting smoking
male pattern baldness
serious spinal disc problems
progressively worsening myopia
asthma
arthritis
and, oh yeah, drug addiction
If someone wanted to take any one of those problems away from me, I'd gladly let the sense of smell go, and chalk that trade up in the win column. But, I don't think that's how it works. I suspect that I'm either going to get this back or not, and that either way, there's a lesson to be learned from it.
I find it comforting to think that there is a way I can derive benefit from this kind of crap by learning from it, but as far as there being an underlying "it happened because you did this-and-that, instead of thus-and-such" causality... doubt it. The only thing that's come to mind is to be thankful for even small pleasures; don't take 'em for granted.
Anyway, it's getting late; time for prayers and bed. I think I may be well enough for my meditation meeting tomorrow night, which would mean I'd missed six days' worth of meetings (well, I probably would have only gone on three or four of 'em anyway), and I'll be excited to get to go.
*edit*
A few days after writing this, my sense of smell began to come back. But, it was gone completely for a week or so. An interesting experience; actually very enlightening.
-M
