I haven't been messing with noxious chemicals and I haven't been to a doctor yet. My nose isn't clogged at all, so I don't think anything needs clearing out. It's just been the last couple days that I've come to the realization that it's not the world that's been changing, it's me. No, we don't have mutant low odor skunks around here. No, the Russian olive tree in our yard didn't start producing less fragrant blooms this year. No, my daughter probably isn't being too picky when she says the puppy smells like a
dog.
I finally looked it up the day before yesterday, and losing the sense of smell is called anosmia. I'm relatively lucky in that I can still smell
some things. Some people lose it all. I can still catch a whiff of strong odors. It was strange last night, when I was cooking I cut up an onion, and could only smell a faint hint of onion smell- but when I started cooking the onion in the skillet, THAT smell came through loud and clear.
I couldn't smell the hamburger cooking with it, but the browned onion smell was one I evidently still have receptors for.
I probably will get this looked at, if only to eliminate the possibility of a tumor causing this malfunction.
What's scary, though, is there seems to be a link between anosmia and Alzheimer's later on- and my worst nightmares in the past few years have been about losing my memory. So that's not fun to contemplate.
This does explain why I haven't been cooking much this summer. Much of the appeal of home cooked meals is how good they smell as you prepare them, and I guess without the associated smells, I can't be bothered with cooking. Frozen dinners are "better", because they use more flavors I can taste with my tongue like salt, sweet, sour, bitter and MSG. All other flavors are pretty much comprised of smells. Lacking the smells, the commercial food with it's over-abundance of the chemicals I
can taste would be more appealing.
I'm going back to cooking again, because it is healthier, and the rest of my family can still appreciate the smells. It's probably not good that the primary cook of the family can't detect spoiled food with her nose, though.
When in doubt, I'll make my husband sniff stuff for me. Most everything smells *clean* to me now.