Parosmia

 I have this thing, they're calling it Parosmia.  I know, it sounds like the fever-dream induced by psychedelic mushrooms.  Fair assessment. Here’s what we know: one of the indicators of Covid is some degree of  loss of the sense of smell and taste, aka anosmia.  Indeed, when I got sick with Covid I did lose some taste and smell.  Later, as I regained my sense of smell, it became this twisted mutation of what smell, and consequently taste, used to be: Parosmia. From what I’ve read the doctors think that  the nerve receptors are trying to relearn  how to send and receive the correct smell messages and in my case they’re not learning properly. My recalcitrant nerves.  I’ve read whatever information the studies are putting out on the subject and the consensus so far is, “ We’re not sure and no we don’t have substantial data or firm ideas for how it can be fixed”.  I have also read that 70 percent of those affected are women- so good luck ladies, we all know how seriously our “hysterias” have been taken over the centuries.

So what does Parosmia look like? Well, it smells and tastes wrong.   For example:  meat used to smell like meat, now it smells and tastes like the  flesh of  a Komodo dragon who has been in a death match  with the neighbor dragon and subsequently gone slinking off to fester with gangrenous, salmonella ridden wounds at the bottom of a dumpster filled with rotten diapers and sour milk.  Why so many gross words?  Because nothing smells like anything I've ever smelled before.  Now I sit around composing daisy chains of near comparisons to explain what is happening to me.   I imagine harum scarum recipes for this witch's brew of stink:  eye of newt, hair from the underbelly of a gryphon, toenail excretion from a raptor, oh and a pinch of truffle oil.   I’ve been feeling similar but different to the times when I was pregnant  and every smell was magnified to an exponential degree.  Some  of you know about this phenomenon: those times when you could smell the spaghetti breath of the man across the church at nine o'clock in the morning?  Like that.  But different because I don't recognize the exact smells I'm smelling.  They're wrong, slightly off, sometimes way off.  Coffee smells like the body odor of a person who drank an "I've made a huge mistake" amount of coffee and is now having a panic attack, add a daub of eau de skunk roadkill behind each of his fibrillating ears. Garlic smells like the breath of someone who indulged in a delicious Korean fried chicken meal the night before, drank alternating shots of sake and bourbon all night, vomited and then forgot to brush her teeth the next morning, gargling only with yesterday’s  coffee. Toothpaste tastes like rancid self-tanning lotion left in the back of the bathroom cabinet since the late 1990s when it was last used.  The closest I've come to a similar experience was when I was pregnant and living above a couple who cooked with many heavy spices I was not familiar with and as the strange, intense aromas invaded our apartment into my morning sickness, all I could think was, "This must be what hell smells like."

And all these descriptions are only for my own benefit because nobody can understand what's going on inside my nasal passages and therefore inside my head. Trying to explain to an outsider is an exercise in frustration.  But describing it to myself is useful because, indeed, sometimes I do feel as if I am in the throes of a fever-dream induced by psychedelic mushroom ingestion.  Nothing is quite right, nothing is the kind of real I'm completely familiar with.  I'm like Alice down the rabbit hole which has turned out to be the tunnel of a star nosed mole: at first disorienting, frightening and alienating and then it morphs into a nightmare. So describing it gives me a touchstone, a reference point that says,  "yes, I do know what garlic vomit that hasn't been washed by a toothbrush smells like”.

  My daughter Sabine has been a Parosmic ( yes I made that up) much  longer than I.  Mine began October 8 2021, I know the exact day because I sent my family a text saying "this chocolate coffee tastes disgusting- definitely won't try again."  Little did I know that it was the beginning of a much longer journey down dark and lonely byways.   Sabine has been plagued for probably a year longer.  And I must confess I could not understand what she was going through before it happened to me.  I was actually a little jealous of her being so skinny (that’s an unhealthy body image subject for another day). Now I understand a little better and my heart hurts for the isolation she has been experiencing for some time. In a tiny way we can form a  support group of two in that we each know that the other is a real person, having a tangible (smellable?) and similar experience.    We have, in common,  a sense of alienation, not only the  loss of  community in just sitting around a dinner table enjoying company and good food but this gaping vacuum around each of us created by the loss of shared experience.  "Why aren't you eating?', same reason as last night and the night before that and …. “I would never have that kind of willpower",  ITS NOT WILLPOWER ITS TORTURE!  And you definitely would have all the “willpower” in the world if your food smelled like horse's ass. "How much weight have you lost? I wish I could get that diet"  well actually I haven't lost a pound because I'm eating loaves of bread and butter daily and candy by the fistful in order to self-soothe....and I wish you could get this diet too.  Not really, but kind of.

So what is even the point of writing about it?  I'm not sure.  I might have to walk away from the computer and think about the things I could or should be learning from this helpless experience, or from writing about it  or from trying to discuss it with those who love me or those who might need some support themselves.  I missed the lilacs this year, I missed the wisteria....writing that just makes me want to cry.   For two months I missed bread until we discovered that freshly baked sourdough was edible and delicious.  I missed pizza like a wild woman until I found another source that makes garlic free sauce and if I eat three small pieces when they're hot enough to make burn bubbles on the roof of my mouth then I get to have some pizza once  a week.  I missed using my new Nespresso machine that we bought for its evocative coffee smell that reminded us of sneaky boutique hotel getaways.  Months later, I've reached the point where I can have one small shot of espresso quickly enough to savor the old taste and smell, down and done before the lingering nag of skunk and truffle oil can grab hold of my olfactory scruff and shake a gag out of me.  I am wildly appreciative of the steps I've taken forward: the bread, the pizza, the coffee.  I am wildly disappointed every time I try to make something I once loved, like tacos, and it just stinks like pig innards being boiled in truffle oil (yes truffle oil is a theme and I am not a fan).  I am heartbroken by the loss of smells I love for the sake of smelling: flowers, lemons, my husband, my kids, fresh cut grass.  What's the lesson? Appreciate what you have when you have it?  Appreciate the progress I have made since October 8?  Be grateful that all that is wrong with me is this Parosmia thing because other people are going through something much more difficult?  Be more patient and understanding with people who have obstacles that are troubling their life?  Eat all the steak you can get your hands on because there may come a day when you never eat meat again?

Weirdly, what has been singing through my mind as I take a lap and think about the consequences of Parosmia  is a song we used to sing at Mary Immaculate, the little yellow church in my home town.  "Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace."  The part that keeps coming to my mind is this:

      "Oh Master grant that I may never seek 

   so much to be consoled as to console

To be understood as to understand

         To be loved as to love with all my soul.

What does this mean?  Well, the song is supposed to be the prayer of St Francis of Assisi.  Reflected in the lines is not necessarily what he, or I in singing it, have already achieved but what we would like to see in ourselves  as the outcome of some growth.  We, me and Francis, are asking God to empower us to be more understanding, consoling and loving, within the confines of our ability, through our trials both great and small.  Maybe I can help my daughter negotiate this situation better in having a deeper understanding of her struggle.  Maybe I can be more mindful of praying for my friend who has been fighting liver cancer with tenacious endurance and grace.  Maybe I can be grateful for every small kindness that is extended to me through a crust of bread.  And if I do catch a whiff of  an old fragrance, maybe I will be attentive and  ready to stop, drink it in,  full of gratitude and grace for the small favors that come my way.