It started with coffee, as every day should. Only my coffee had been replaced with the ashes of a rotten bear that had been cremated in a car. I nearly puked. This came as a shock, since I’d been sticking my nose in the depths of the coffee jar for weeks in a desperate hope that I’d be able to smell something – anything. This wasn’t what I was looking for.
A bit of context. In early March, I went to Italy. I know it sounds insane now, but at the time, the government advice was to go, I wasn’t getting my money back if I didn’t and Covid-19 was restricted to a few small Italian towns. There were zero cases in the region I was travelling to. Naturally, I caught the virus. Probably on the plane, since for most of the time, my wife Liz and I felt like the only people in the mountains.
I felt a bit rotten the first day back. Then very tired. No temperature (we were checking hourly) and never a cough. I called 111. Because we came back a day before Italy locked down and didn’t have the two known symptoms, we were told it was likely fine, but we were offered a test. Two days later, after hearing nothing about this test, I called 111 again and a distressed call handler explained tests had been cancelled. He was overwhelmed by calls coming in, had no information and told me he hadn’t seen his kids in a week. About this time, my sense of taste and smell disappeared. Completely. I couldn’t smell anything and taste was gone. No flavour, no tingle, no spice. It was weird.
At this point, Google was my friend. I found an article in a US magazine about people in Iran searching for “lost taste and smell” in staggering numbers when the outbreak there exploded. I was convinced. I’d had two serious viruses in recent months – one put me in hospital with the symptoms of a stroke – but this was entirely new.
I was exhausted. Walking up the stairs left me breathless. I had been running about 35km a week, now my lungs were like fun bags of Haribo. I went to bed, lost my job, worried about the kids.
Still the government was running two levels of “advised against” (regular and strong) for meeting friends. Nothing was locked down. Herd immunity was a thing. Don’t go on a cruise, old people! We took the kids out of school, checked the advice again and again, and sent them back after two days. Officially, we didn’t have coronavirus. Practically, we clearly did. We did more than the government advised. There was no hope of a test, so no isolation (we didn’t have the right symptoms, remember), no tracing, no controlling the virus before it killed 60,000 people. Still no lockdown.
Liz stayed at home – she’s still not been back to the office since the trip, although she’s working so hard it makes my head spin. I slowly got better. My breathing, now three months later, is probably at 80 percent. I’m tired, but then I always was. I teach the kids every day, although I’m running out of steam. I got a small amount of money from the government self-employed scheme. I drink too much so I don’t spend every evening panicking about the future.
And my taste and smell came back. Very briefly. A month ago, I had one mushroom from the barbeque that was the most delicious thing ever to pass my lips. The next day was the coffee incident.
That’s where I am now. Four weeks of finding some foods so hideous that I spit them out. Previously inoffensive cereal bars taste like despair. Last night I walked into the kitchen and the smell of steamed rice made me choke. Some food is just tasteless – fruit is pretty neutral, for example. But old favourites, like Asian noodles, have been sprinkled with the ashes of incinerated drain covers.
I’ve researched this and it’s got a name – parosmia. What I had before, when I could sense nothing, was anosmia. I preferred anosmia. There are support groups online (I’m a member of three) and a charity called Abscent, which has been overwhelmed by similarly affected Covid veterans. They suggest “smell training”, involving the regular inhalation of essential oils to retrain the damaged olfactory nerves. I’m doing it twice a day.
Recovery is far from guaranteed. Experts cannot tell you when or if you’ll be back to normal (I’m sensing a metaphor for the entire pandemic here). According to the best sources I can find, it may take a few months, or a few years. Parosmia with coronavirus as a cause is completely new. Maybe the nerves will heal quicker than from other viral injuries. Maybe not.
The problem for me is less the physical unpleasantness. It’s not nice when food is at best bland, at worse inedible. But psychologically, it’s much tougher than you might imagine. At times like these, there’s great pleasure to be found in the smell of summer flowers, rain on grass, a rich glass of red wine or a dark, punchy espresso. These experiences guide our path through the world. Think how often a taste or smell transports you somewhere. The beautiful memories of holidays past, childhood joy, romance, adventure.
I’m trapped with a near-constant whiff of death haunting my sinuses. It feels like an insult, a cruel joke. On top of the loss of income, the battle with childcare, the loneliness and the anxiety, I’ve had one major source of pleasure snatched away. If I contemplate my senses never returning, I panic. I’d promised myself an extravagant meal at the local Italian, once this is over. Now there’s no point.
I write this with two messages to impart. One, absolutely smell the roses. Pause, appreciate, inhale. I never thought I’d miss the dog’s farts, but at least they added texture (chewy, meaty, stomach-turning texture) to life. And two, try not to get coronavirus. I had a moderate case and it was horrible. Some parts of me might never be the same again – my lungs don’t feel like they’ll ever entirely recover. And now this. Wake up and smell the coffee. And hope it smells like coffee.
