For almost a week, my sense of smell and taste have been deprived (perhaps deleted might better description). I’m recovering from some viral bug that I picked up about 2 weeks ago. My nasal passage has been wiped out.
It came to a head last Friday morning, when I was fairly feverish. Upon staggering to my feet, I felt some aching in my elbows and swelling in my lower legs. Lyme disease? Meningitis? West Nile Virus? These suspicions of seasonal maladies swirled through my febrile consciousness. So I called my HMO and they diagnosed me as suffering some flu-like illness.
I’m on the mend, but what I’ve discovered is that for the past 5 or 6 days, I’ve been unable to taste or smell anything. Sometimes I’ve been able to detect sweetness on the tongue, or rather a sensation of warmth, but little else.
It’s very bothersome to have lost my sense of taste, because I feel it would be a waste of time to eat or cook various items. If you can’t taste the food, why bother eating it?… unless you appreciate the texture.
In some ways that’s simplified my food preparation. For example, I recently ate some hot dogs without condiments after I realized that I couldn’t taste the relish, mustard, and ketchup.