Have you ever wondered what it would be like to not smell? Have you thought about how your life would be different if that sense was just suddenly gone? It happened to me and I could never have predicted how far it would affect me.
I am anosmic, I have absolutely no sense of smell - but I wasn’t always this way. I got Anosmia in 2004 after I was in a 4-wheeling accident where I suffered a head injury. I was 18 at the time and it had been a pretty bad accident. I was dealing with a bad broken wrist, cracked skull, chipped shoulder blade and a compound fracture on my ankle which required multiple surgeries, a plate, 4 screws and several pins - and those were just my broken bones. I had road rash over my entire body, bad enough for stitches in some places - including my face. I also managed to break a couple of my teeth as well. My sense of smell was the last thing on my mind.
I remember the first time I noticed something was off, I was in the hospital for a week after the accident and my sister had gotten me a candle but when I went to smell it, nothing. Absolutely nothing. I didn’t think too much of it then because I had plenty of other things to worry about, and I mean it couldn’t possibly be permanent so it took a while for me to realize how far it went. Then after I did realize it was gone I think I reacted like most people would and I was dismissive of how important that particular sense is. ‘If I have to lose one of my senses, my sense of smell would be the first I would choose to go.” I told myself. I know now that I was compensating for the loss, but if I had known then what I know now I don’t think I would have been so okay.
After the accident I felt like the loss was not that bad. I was young and so excited to get on with my life but it didn’t take long until I began to notice the absence a lot more. Going to eat out, especially with a group, now always started with a disappointment as I walked into the restaurant and everyone exclaimed how good it smelled. Cooking was now much more difficult. Everything from shopping for the ingredients to the cooking to the eating were now filled with reminders of what I had lost.
But as life so often does it moved on and I moved on with it and not quite a year later I was married. Another year and we had our first son and a whole new level of what I was missing opened up to me. My perfect little baby, I breathed him in remembering all the little babies I held as a young girl and my heart broke as no baby smell came. I knew it would happen, I thought I was prepared for it but it was like a slap in the face. I would never be able to experience that part of my baby.
Now you can’t talk about babies without hitting poopy diapers. That is one thing that people like to point out specifically as something that I bet I’m glad I can’t smell. These people would be absolutely wrong, I mean, yes it is nice to not smell the bad crap (sorry, I had to do it) and not having my smell makes me uniquely qualified to handle all things nasty, poopy diapers among them, but what about after I just change my wet child and they decide to make that wonderful other contribution to their diaper? Try to tell yourself how good it is that you can’t smell a poopy diaper when your baby is in pain from the diaper rash he got because you weren’t able to smell his messy diaper to be able to change it earlier. I learned to make sure to check regularly but there are many times that I did miss it and my kids have all suffered because of it.
Here and there something like that always seems to happen, a shock that reminds me just how much I am lacking. Like the time I stayed at a hotel and was eating breakfast in the morning - As a safe habit I always check all best by dates on my food. The carton of milk that I had hadn’t reached it’s best buy date so I took a huge swallow…
One of my latest shocks happened when we recently moved to our new house. It has gas appliances. I was obviously aware of the possible danger that came with gas appliances but I figured since I was aware I would be able to handle it. I was proved wrong when my husband came home from work one day and immediately started searching for the gas leak coming from the stove.
There is one thing that affects me more than I could ever have imagined, people’s reactions. When I tell people that I have no sense of smell they react in one of these 3 ways:
1) They say something like, ‘I’m so sorry!’ or ‘That sucks!’
2) They ask questions about it - mostly in regards to the effect my lack of smell has on my taste.
3) They say something like, ‘That must be nice.’, ‘You must be able to smell something!’ or my all time favorite ‘You’re so lucky!’
That’s right. People actually tell me that I am lucky to not have one of my 5 senses. And if you’re thinking that only a person here or there says something like that, well, you’d be wrong. I’d say that 4 out of 5 people react like this. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame them at all! It is hard to understand just how important something so ordinary is until it’s gone, but my understanding this doesn’t stop how hurtful people’s words can be even when they think they are being nice. You would never tell a blind or deaf person that they are lucky, so why do people continue to say that to me?
Imagine the alienation you would feel if you were the only one of your friends or family who couldn’t see or hear but nobody believed you or they were constantly forgetting and you had to remind them. Anosmics deal with this all the time, the best intentioned people repeatedly forget. *Please understand that I am not trying to say that Anosmia is as bad as being blind or deaf because that would be just crazy.*
We tend to forget just how amazing our sense of smell really is. It has been recorded since the 1920s that our olfactory sense can distinguish between 10,000 different odors, that in itself would be impressive, however, a much more recent study noted that this estimate was “conservative” and in that study the worst performer still distinguished between an astonishing 80 million different scents!
If people would take a second to think about all the implications of being without a sense of smell has then I would never have to hear that I am ‘lucky’ to be anosmic again. Our sense of smell alerts us when there is spoiled food or dangerous chemicals around, it helps us know if we are clean, if our homes are clean, our children. It helps our brains form memories and helps us feel close to our loved ones. Most is the effect smell has on our taste. Our tongues can only detect the basics - salt, sweet, bitter, sour and savory. Our sense of smell is what gives food between 80-90% of its flavor.
Which brings me to the most devastating part of it all. When I lost my smell my taste was immediately and severely affected by the absence. Everything was dull. I’ve found ways to compensate (I use lots of salt and hot sauce) but the experience of eating has become so much less enjoyable, I could still taste but it was so weak, like a memory of a taste.
Over the last year my taste has been… fading. It is the only word I can think to explain it. I don’t know why it’s happening but it’s leaving me. I don’t like eating anymore. It has become a dreaded thing I have to do everyday. The thought of food often makes me feel nauseated and if I don’t set a schedule I can go a couple days without eating and not even realize it. It has become a serious health concern that I have to worry about all the time and has been the hardest thing to deal with as a result of my Anosmia.
It has been 12 years since I have been able to go outside and smell the grass being cut, or since I have smelled food cooking, or outside after it rains, or perfume. I have never been able to smell my children or any of the flowers that my husband has ever gotten me. I will never again be able to smell coffee or bacon but you can! So go hug a loved one and breathe them in. Walk into your favorite restaurant and breathe deeply. Go out and smell a whole garden of flowers. Cook dinner and smell EVERYTHING! Just go smell things.
Sincerely,
Anosmic.
