‘I lost my sense of smell through brain injury – I’m grateful COVID has shone a light on its impact’
Having been in a near-fatal car accident, Sally Smith has recovered physically, but a brain injury resulted in the permanent loss of smell. Here, she discusses how the once-tricky subject has now become much more accessible through its association with COVID-19.
I used to love the smell of Christmas. I honestly think that was my favourite part. The mulled wine, the spicy fragrances, the turkey dinner cooking – that really made Christmas for me.
However, for the past five years, I’ve had to live without this, after losing my sense of smell as a result of my brain injury. As 80 per cent of the flavour of food comes from its smell, my sense of taste has also been seriously impacted.
It has been a pretty life-changing experience, one which I could never have appreciated the impact of. Christmas certainly isn’t the same, but neither is any other day.
The smells of summer – the cut grass, the flowers, the barbecues – all lost. The overpowering sensation of walking through the perfume departments of stores is something I can only remember. Even the smell of burning to alert me to the fact I’ve left the dinner in the oven too long is gone forever. And the taste of my favourite foods and wine is also tainted, with a flavour so faint often I wonder what is the point.
While people are sympathetic, they don’t understand. But how could they? I’m not sure I could have prior to my own experience.
Often, their sympathies extend to something like ‘Well at least you’ve still got your hearing/sight’ as if it’s some competition between the senses. Or ‘At least you’re still alive,’ which is quite dramatic, but nevertheless true.
I did come close to losing my life in a car accident five years ago. As a back seat passenger, I bore the brunt of a lorry crashing into the back of the vehicle I was in, and suffered a range of injuries, my brain injury being the one which still affects me now and always will.
I was undoubtedly lucky, apparently it was miraculous I survived, and I do feel so fortunate to have few other lasting affects apart from my loss of smell.
The topic was one that there were few opportunities to talk about, as devastating as it was personally for me, given the fact that so few people had experienced it for themselves.
Until a few months ago, that is, and the fact that loss of smell become a symptom of COVID-19. Suddenly, it stopped being a subject that was just plain weird, and one that everyone was talking about. People began to understand.
My next door neighbour had COVID-19 and lost her sense of smell for a short period. ‘It was only at that point I realised how horrendous it is,’ she said to me after her recovery. ‘Who knew I’d actually miss the smell of my daughter’s dirty nappy?’
And while that’s perhaps not something you’d ever think you’d miss, when you find yourself in the situation of not being able to smell anything at all, however divine or revolting, you do feel a great sense of loss. Of wishing to smell anything at all.
Thankfully, for most people with COVID-19, this is a temporary state, but I have heard there could be more than 100,000 of those recovering from this terrible virus whose loss of smell has extended beyond four weeks. I can only hope this is not a permanent state for them, although undoubtedly there is much more about COVID-19 and its lasting impact we have yet to discover.
For me, my situation is permanent, and living in a world with no fragrance is the reality. Yes, things could be much worse, and I realise that, but for me, it has been life-changing.
