Coming to my sense in the new year

So the first day of 2020 and there I am in the Doctors waiting room on no coffee and a handful of hours of sleep, courtesy of counting down the back end of 2019 at a friends pool party.

So a pool related party activity you ask? No something that's hung around a lot longer than that...

...namely that I couldn't smell a damn thing.

IT DIDN'T SMELL LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

Actually I couldn't smell any spirit, teen or otherwise. For months now I haven't been able to pick up any scents. No cooking food, no freshly cut grass or baked bread or the smell of the instant coffee that starts my day off.

Which when you attempt to brew and review beers through another blog, makes this takes inherently difficult because smell plays a decent part of the process. Any grassy notes? No idea. Is there a ghost waft of wheat? Er...possibly?
I could taste okay (although many people have told me that your sense of smell works in conjunction with your sense of taste although I didn't feel like my taste receptors were any less reduced.) But I wasn't getting any smell good or bad at all.

'How good does it smell in the kitchen' my wife would start before stopping herself realizing I still wasn't able to enjoy the aromas of the roast/home made pizza/tuna bake.

I could sneeze at the speed of a force five hurricane though. Many times without warning or triggers (although the occasional beer acted as a trigger). That had to count for something right?

(A shout to the host of the pool party too who kept thinking I had no sense of taste ala Michael Hutchence, the legendary former singer of Aussie music group INXS who lost his sense of taste after being punched by a taxi driver. I've never fought a taxi driver and it was my smell that faded not my tasting ability.)

Legend

SO GO THE DOCTORS ALREADY!

Well I did throughout the year but it was what I felt at the time (and thanks to my wife's urging) was far more important especially here in Queensland, getting my moles checked. And in two of the cases getting them cut out with minor surgery.
Oh and getting something cut off my face that's been there for about 27 years. That's been high up on the list of things to get done for quite some now. 

Now my face looks fine and the scans tell me the moles weren't cancerous, excellent. 'Next I'm going to get you booked in for your sneezing...' the better half chimed in. And good to her word, suddenly I'm barely awake on the first day of the new year wracking my tired brain over how invasive things are going to get in a few minutes.

When actually...

THE DOCTOR IS IN

I explained the situation while he took my blood pressure, checked my ears and noses and told me to say ahhh.

'I can smell something bacterial on your breath.'

I wasn't about to tell him that I hadn't had time that morning to brush my teeth...

'I'm going to prescribe this. And this. Oh and this nasal spray. And in under five minutes I was strolling across the road to the nearest chemist wondering if it was as easy to fix as he explained 'Take this for five days and this for ten. Come back if it doesn't work.'

One tablet has no taste, the other tastes like powered concrete and the nasal spray really wakes you up if coffee isn't doing the trick. 'Take this one at lunch if you can' the chemist explained 'one of the side effects is insomnia.'
I don't sleep much anyway so I wasn't too worried about that one.

TODAY, THREE DAYS LATER

I'm moving house again (yeah incredible deja vu as it's exactly the same thing we were doing at the start of last year) and after setting up things for a garage sale tomorrow, I drove to the supermarket for some stuff for the kids to make their own pizzas. And there at the automated checkout one of the workers there to kick the machines back in line when they fall over seemingly took a bath that afternoon in a vat of the cheapest, nastiest, bulk produced old woman body spray known to man.
Mother of god, does she not realise how strong she smells here? That's insanely powerf-

Wait.

I can smell her?

The first thing my nostrils have picked up after seemingly being out of action for the good part of a year is more cheap perfume than a tarts handbag...

Still, I grinned like an absolute idiot walking out with my shopping with the fact that I could smell again. It's was bumping into your best mate from high school after so long since the last beers. The car park smelt like something burnt and sweat.

It was magical.

THE ULTIMATE TEST - HOP TO IT

I have some small jars of hops for beer brewing in the freezer and once in a blue moon I'll pop open the lid for a sniff to see how things are tracking but all I'd usually get is nothing. A sense of cold but no smell from one set of hops to another.

Today I smelt everything on the label. The Mosiac smelt like berries. The Tettnanger smelt spicy and earthy like it should. The cascade brought back memories.

'Aren't you going to thank me for telling you to go to the doctors now?'

Yes credit where credit is due, my wife helped get my sense of smell back. Something I would have had looked at later this year...possibly after we finally moved house and got settled. But I feel like a new man now and that's a great way to kick off a (slightly stressful) new year.

Lost your sense of smell and putting off getting it checked? Talk to your doctor. It could be an easier fix than you first thought.

Of course on the second day (yesterday) of this new year I found myself at the optometrists for the first time ever for an eye test (again she booked it on my behalf) but that's a story for another time..