Post Covid Nose –

Dang. No strawberries on French Toast. Double DANG!

Our sense of smell is a social and emotional part of living. It is aligned with our sense of taste, and food is more than something we eat to live. Food and its enticing aromas gather us together. If we are given flowers, we bury our face in them, inhaling sweetness. We smell our babies’ little heads. The air after a rain. Our partners skin after a shower. Puppy breath. Holiday baking. Coffee brewing. 

Scent evokes emotion and memory. So does taste. Smell and taste: besties. 

The sense of smell was an important part of our evolution and survival. Our Early Selves sniffed out food, sniffed out danger, sniffed out partners to mate with. Our sense of smell unites us with the world around us, as does our sight, hearing, taste, touch.

When we lose a sense or more, we lose an important part of who we are and of who we are in relation to the world around us and to others. 

So. It is spring, and the long-anticipated arrival of fresh beautiful red ripe strawberries has me waking up happy. I had been struggling with a diminished lack of smell, and food had lost some of its richness. My morning coffee doesn’t smell like coffee any longer—it smells, well, weird. I cannot detect citrus. Barely detect the scent of my new shampoo that reviewers said “smells sooooooo good!” My Dove soap smells like nothing. 

Most things have either no smell, a diminished smell, or smell nothing like what they are supposed to smell like. But, eh, I was living with it. Even if a little depressed about it.

Still, I was excited to purchase these strawberries from Christopher Farms that my friend glowed on about. Even if they didn’t quite taste as strongly strawberry as they always did, they would still be a juicy treat.

I purchase the biggest basket. These berries are huge! And red, and gorgeous. And I can’t wait to eat them. I wash a big bowl, pluck out a gigantic berry and take a satisfying bite—wait. Wait. Waaaaaiiiiiiiit ….

I take another bite and another. Something is not quite right, even more not quite right than I had before been experiencing with taste. My stomach turns. Is this strawberry over-ripe? Nope. Does it have a rotted spot? Nope. It’s perfect. Then … what …?

The Post Covid Nose is telling me one thing while the reality is something quite different. Post Covid Nose is telling me my beloved spring strawberries are over-ripe, or rotten, or Not Good For Consumption. 

Up until today, smells weren’t disgusting. Food didn’t taste like something that’s past its okay-to-eat-and-enjoy stage. Food and their scents didn’t make me want to retch.

I go through my fridge, trying to find something I can eat that doesn’t make me want to gag. 

Today’s been the worst day yet as if overnight my brain and nose forgot everything they ever knew about sweet delicious strawberries and instead are warning me DO NOT EAT! DO NOT EAT! DO NOT EAT! Yucky! Yucky! 

My house smells alien; my food tastes alien, as if an alien took me to an observation room that mimics my house and the alien has tried to make everything taste and smell normal, but of course and alas, the alien has everything wrong wrong wrong because upon reading my brain scans with his powerful brainery thingee, my brain is going “Strawberry yucky.” Alien is doing the best it can. Poor thing.

I once had a very definite sense of smell. Before Covid, sometimes I’d be aggravated by my olfactory senses because the world can be a stinky place. Sitting on an airplane, I would be assaulted by people’s odors—feet (please leave your shoes on folks!), body odor, unwashed clothing, food odors, and the terrible awful emissions from people’s backsides that cannot be escaped because we are sitting in a big tube of gross. Ewwwwww.

But on the plus side, I enjoyed the more pleasant scents and in my home are many essential oils I’d place in my diffuser and inhale Zen. Ahhh. Candles I’d received as gifts that I’d light from time-to-time. Cooking aromas. Fresh fruits and veggies. Tangy citrus. Linen sprays for my sheets and pillow. Even opening up a new bar of Dove soap made me feel a sense of calm and gratitude for the very idea that a bar of soap made me danged ol happy! 

And that bucket of strawberries that normally would be a joy has become a bucket of disgust. 

I tried to eat them because they are good for me, and I didn’t want to waste them, or maybe because I’m being stubborn. I won’t let this Covid Nose get to me! I love strawberries, dammit! MMMM(ewww yuck)mmmmm – ugh.

For the past month, out of hope and desperation, every day, twice a day, I do my Smell Training. Rose, eucalyptus, lemon, clove—all from a kit by Moxe that I bought from Amazon. I’d just began to incorporate in my routine items from my kitchen: cinnamon, vanilla, citrus, other essential oils. I’d do the visualization tricks. I’d do the concentrating on a memory. And as of day before yesterday, it seemed to be working. 

Maybe I overdid it and caused my nose to complain to my brain about sensory overload and my brain rebelled because it can be a complete asshole sometimes. 

Oh, please tell me this is the “it gets worse before it gets better” thing. Lawd. Anyone else out there experience this? You? You? Is this a worse before better thing? *hopeful face*

When I tested positive for Covid this past November 2022, I was taken by surprise. I’d had all my vaxs; I was (and still am) strong and healthy; I’d been careful—well, except I was cocky when I flew to Oregon end of October 2022 and didn’t mask up as I’d done on flights before. There was a point where they had us waiting to board and we were packed in like cattle. Three airplanes worth of people in one tiny area. I said to someone, prophetically, “Geez. We are in a Covid petri dish….” Ah. Of course, there’s no way to know if this is where I contracted Covid, but that would be a big contender. 

I sailed through my Covid. It was as if I had a moderate cold. Lucky me, I thought. When I realized I’d lost my sense of smell, I didn’t panic. I figured it would come back. And it did, just a little. In fact, at first I didn’t realize I wasn’t like I was before. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. 

But today? Today I am in the alien observatory and alien is scratching his bulbous head in perplexity: “Why ain’t she enjoying this bounty? Stupid human. I picked a broken one.”

There is hope. I have talked to others with Post Covid Nose and some say it took 8 to 9 months but they made full recovery. Another said it took over a year for hers to return but it did return. My research tells me it could be up to 2 years. 

Or it could be never. Stop saying that!

I’m staring at that bucket of strawberries now. Maybe if I cooked them down. Maybe if I gave them away. Maybe if I froze them until things are better. I am picking one up—I am placing it under my nose; I take a tiny bite—I am about to retch. In a frenzy I throw them one at a time outside for the baby groundhog that’s been hanging round my lil log house. There! There! There! There! There! There! You have them!

I know that Covid has done many terrible things. I know that the inability to enjoy food or scents may seem on the surface a small thing, and yes, in the face of some of the more terrible awful things, like death or permanent illness or debilitating brain fog, it is in comparison a smaller matter. But when you lose one or more of your senses, your world doesn’t make complete sense. It feels alien and strange. And the little joys of life, like eating and smelling wonderful things, are taken away. Fears can emerge, like, how can I tell if something has gone bad? Will I smell the smoke strong enough if my house is on fire? Does this stink? Do I smell? Do they smell? Is that gross or okay? Does this smell good or bad or nothing? Is there an alien behind me? 

Covid has taken so much from so many. And for some, it keeps on taking. For others, like me, it has changed the sense of the world around me that, in a word, sucks.

Well, Covid and my brain are being complete assholes. But maybe I’ll back off on the smell training. Just a bit. And we’ll just see what happens. Right? Right.