Sense of Smell

I've wavered between thinking Jim and I caught bad colds at just the wrong time, versus thinking that we do in fact have Covid-19. Symptoms are anomalous, timing is spot on, testing is a no-go.

The state will not test if there is no fever or known contact with a positive person. Neither one of us has a fever but the fact that Jim came down so sick 3 days after we flew home from California, and I am sick now 15 days later means we likely did have contact somewhere in the airports or on our flights.

No traffic on our street. Blooming things are opening up.

I do not fault the state -- protective gear and test supplies are so limited, and the only thing they are going to tell us if we test positive is to keep doing what we are doing. Our symptoms are not classic. The state's official recommendation is "if you have symptoms and you think you have Covid-19 you probably do and there is no need to test. The treatment is to isolate at home unless symptoms become severe."

Jim's odyssey has been a long slog of uncomfortable but not life threatening symptoms. Cough, swollen glands, night sweats. His ear is clogged up which is a misery. He's no worse, but no better.

Now I have congestion and a sore throat, all upper respiratory symptoms. But it's unlike any head cold I've had before. I've completely lost any sense of smell. That's a key sign of Covid-19 apparently. In 30% of cases tracked in Europe, loss of smell preceded a positive test.

And it's weird -- It's not just a clogged nose. I have absolutely no ability to smell anything at all, even though I can breathe through my nose.

I actually opened and sniffed my bottles of essential oils that I use in a diffuser and could not smell a thing. These oils are really strong, and right under my nose I could not detect a thing. When we cook I can't even tell anyone is in the kitchen. Taste, which goes with smell, is weirdly gone. Everything tastes like nothing.

Jim calls these aromatherapy diffused oils my "stinkies"

I'm uncomfortable, as Jim is. We probably don't have Covid-19. We probably do have it. We may not. We might. We are isolating. Our approach is the following:

Tyleol for the discomfort. Antibiotic eye drops prescribed by the doctor for the ickiness in our eyes. Advil in between the Tylenol. 

Recover at home, and when the serological blood test for antibodies is finally available (a simpler, finger prick test to see if you've ever had the disease, not the complicated lab test to see if you are currently positive), we will take that. We'll then know whether we had Covid-19 and are immune, or whether we continue to be vulnerable to infection.

That test is a way off yet, in development. But we can wait. We have toilet paper. We can get food. We are not in dire straits. The crabapples are blooming and forsythias are golden yellow. My tulips are coming up. The neighbors have been leaving vegetables on our front porch.

I can't smell a friggin thing.