Scents and sense-ability

Losing your taste and smell to Covid-19 is a bigger deal than you might imagine

This morning I poured a cup of coffee, reflexively sniffed the milk carton, added a generous amount to my mug and then watched in dismay as it curdled into unappetizing floating fragments.

That’s just one example of the disconcerting incidents I can attribute to having lost my sense of taste and smell after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

I was fortunate to be spared the worst of the threats after testing positive for the virus last October. For a week, I had fevers and chills, a headache and painful joints, but no cough, congestion or breathing issues. Nausea kept me from eating anything but popsicles for a week, but even then, I know I could still smell because every aroma I inhaled just made me feel queasier.

It wasn’t until I started to feel better -- around week two -- that I suddenly realized the chicken soup I was sipping was utterly tasteless. When I tried eating something more substantive, it felt like chewing on my own tongue. Texture and memory were all I had to decipher what I was eating, and they were sorely inadequate.  In an effort to taste something – anything! --  I found myself using inordinate amounts of salt, which did nothing to awaken my taste buds, but did manage to make every bite burn.

Given that I am alive and well today, you won’t find me crying over spoiled milk. But while my taste buds have somewhat revived (albeit to a less-than-optimal degree), I’m still completely oblivious to the wafts of bacon, marijuana or sewage that cause others to lick their lips or hold their noses.

It’s a greater affliction than I ever imagined back in grade school, when my third grade teacher asked – after a unit on Helen Keller – which of our five senses we’d be willing to part with. Back then we all agreed losing the ability to smell would be preferable to going without sight, sound, touch or taste.

But it turns out it’s not quite that clear cut. Your sense of smell is inextricably wound up with your experience of taste. And frankly, because I can’t smell, nothing tastes the way it used to. That leaves me feeling obstinately unfulfilled, like a child with Prader-Willi Syndrome in search of an eternally elusive satisfaction. The part of my brain that registers gustatory gratification seems permanently shut off.

People who’ve had to undergo a leg amputation sometimes have the phantom sensation that their limb is still there. I feel a little the same way about my nose, thinking I must be smelling the garlic and onions I’m cooking … only to realize I’m only remembering what it should smell like.

The loss of taste and smell is wearing, mentally and physically. It’s depressing when mealtime, one of life’s great pleasures, becomes more duty than delectation.  While I’m not someone who needs to lose weight, if I didn’t sometimes force down tasteless food now, I probably would have. (I’ve grown snippy with people who carry a few extra pounds saying they’d love to love food less. All I can say is, be careful what you wish for.)

As someone who’s a free-wheeling experimenter in the kitchen, prone to taking liberties with recipes, cooking is more difficult too. I can no longer relish homemade bread baking in the oven, the pungent sting of wasabi or the heady scent of herbs picked fresh from the garden. My recipe monitoring is totally off kilter. How much of any spice do you add when you can’t rely on measuring “to taste”?

I even miss smells that are usually unpleasant: sulfuric water spraying from an irrigation system; hot asphalt laid by a road construction crew; an overloaded garbage truck on a hot day that leaves a pungent odor in its wake.

From the many articles I’ve read, this phenomenon lingers beyond a couple of weeks in only a tiny percentage of Covid survivors. (This reminds me of when I told my son, 20 years ago, that I’d been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor which occurs in only one of 100,000 people and he responded: “Wow! You’re really special!”) In desperation, I’ve tried every suggestion, from aromatherapy to acupuncture to essential oils. I’ve even practiced the mind exercises I’m told can “re-train” your olfactory nerves, but either I’ve got some belligerent nerves or a deficient mind.

When I was young, we used the drive to our cottage on Lake Michigan every summer, always along the same route. It wove through the town of Holland, Michigan and past an industrial strip where there was a pickle factory and a bread bakery.

I have long forgotten the names of the streets, the look of the neighborhood, the pinching of the sister sitting next to me or the songs on the radio. But if I tip my head back, close my eyes and inhale deeply, I can instantly remember the intoxicating aroma as we passed the Bimbo bread factory and the briny, sour smell that permeated the car blocks before the Heinz plant came into view.

Oh what I wouldn’t give to have that kind of sense-ability today.