Getting My Sense of Smell Back

I’m not exactly sure when I lost my sense of smell. Smell is a subtle thing. It was something that faded away without much of a fuss. I don’t even remember having a day when I realized that I had lost my sense of smell. It was a conclusion that I came to over time, as people pointed out smells that I didn’t notice. People usually found out I couldn’t smell when someone would react to a repugnant smell and I would state that I had lost my sense of smell. The funny thing is people would tell me I’m lucky. I never knew how to respond to that, sure I could not smell foul things, but I also couldn’t smell that earthy smell the ground lets out during a summer rain. Eating was not pleasurable as it once was, food was bland. The reason I could no longer smell was nasal polyps in my sinuses had blocked off my olfactory passage. I grow polyps like an invasive plant species in Madagascar. They destroyed everything in their path (my polyps had completely filled, eroded and destroyed my sinuses). I’ve had two surgeries, the first one did nothing more than allow me to breathe through my nose again. The effects were short lived and within six months I was sounding like a pug again when breathing. And while not that relevant the surgeon was also a total dick. The second surgery I had was with a new surgeon, the nasal polyp guy. He was nice and very handsome, which is not extremely relevant apart from I tend to bleed and snot all over him which is embarrassing. He spent over four hours removing polyps and rebuilding my sinuses, he wanted to get every last one of the suckers out. After surgery I could breathe threw my nose again and the results lasted. But still no sense of smell. To manage my polyps (those fuckers grow back at an alarming rate) I have a complex daily routine of rinsing and snorting various steroids up my nose.  I also visit my surgeon every 3-4 months to get my polyp debrided (like a roto router for your nose). But still no smell, it was just life. Then last year I went on a magic study drug. The magic drug that got rid of my asthma also gifted me my sense of smell. One day not that long ago I was sitting on the couch with my partner and a rank smell floated my way. Without even thinking about it I yelled at him “what the fuck is that, it smells like you have a dead fish up your ass” (I’m crude what can I say). Miles (my partner of four years) just looked at me in total shock and surprise. As long as we have been together I have never been able to smell, so he took to the habit of “letting one rip” whenever the need arose. It should be noted that he did take great effort ensuring when he passed gas that there was an audible sound so I would be aware of what he had done. So the first thing I smelled in almost 10 years was a fart, and a rank one at that. My eyes watered up but not because of the smell, but because I could smell. I went and smelling everything. Eating was incredible. When I eat a raspberry for the first time after getting my sense of smell back, memories of eating raspberries in my grandmother’s garden came flooding back. The thing with smell is that they are tied to our memories in a direct neurological way, and you can’t just recall them like an image in your head. While my sense of smell is not great it is there. I’m not sure how long it will be before it’s gone again, but while it lasts I am taking the time to ensure I smell the roses. 

A Short Story of a Red Canoe

The canoe was originally my Grandpapa’s. It is a big red fiberglass canoe, big enough to comfortably fit a family of four. The thing weighs a ton; this was no high tech portable, portaging canoe. It was a canoe you stuck a small outboard motor on and took your family on day adventure on. I don’t know when my father inherited the canoe but I have some happy memories of day trips with my parents and brother in the red canoe. My parents live across the street from ocean and every few feet there is a water access point. It is common for people to store their small boats and canoes at these water access points. We kept the canoe for years at one of those water access points, a few houses down and across the street from my parent’s home. Then one day ten years ago graduation weekend, the canoe went missing. We all assumed that some drunken teenagers took the canoe for a joy paddle. I mean who else would else think of moving a canoe that weighed a ton. I assumed the canoe ended up at the bottom of the ocean or broke apart and wash up on the shores up and down the inlet. But throughout the years my dad swore up and down he saw people paddling our canoe up and down the inlet. I never believed him, “It’s not our canoe its one that just looks like our old canoe” I would say. Ten years passed with the occasional sighting of the “red canoe”. This summer I was at my parent’s house for dinner, and out of the blue my dad says “The canoe is back”. “Bullshit” I reply. “There is no way that our canoe is back after ten years” I say. “I’ll show you after dinner” he says. We walk down to the water that one over from the original access point where we stored our canoe. And there under a tarp was our canoe, the same heavy red fiber glass canoe. “Are you going to bring it back to the house and reclaim it I ask”? “Naww” says my dad “Let’s leave it here, think of all the interesting adventures the canoe has had in the past ten years, we didn’t use it enough anyways. At least someone got some use out of it”. Now every few months I go back down to the water access point to see if the canoe is still there. Sometime it is, sometimes it not and I wonder what is the canoe up to these days.