She is Not Alone

There is an interesting medical condition in which individuals lose their ability to smell, in many cases due to some sort of head trauma. It's called anosmia. Really. Like amnesia, but it's your nose which has no memory. There's even a foundation that helps to advance the issue. It is evidently an affliction that affects many people.

In December, the New York Times profiled a woman who suffers from it. She had moved to New York and was unable to smell the aromas (good) and odors (bad) of the city that never sleeps. In 2006, she had been hit by a car and the olfactory neurons in her brain that control the ability to smell had been damaged. Then her sense of smell began to return. Her body had decided that she needed her ability to smell - especially the smell of freshly baked bagels coming from a New York bagel shop on a Sunday morning. It is noteworthy the woman being profiled was once a chef and food writer. The story in the Times was picked up by a blogger in New York who also suffers from anosmia.

I have to say, I would miss my sense of smell terribly. As a life-long allergy sufferer, I have gone days with a stuffed nose and the inability to smell things. But there is something about waking up to the smell of coffee (or bacon!) or the aromas coming out the kitchen at a holiday that I would miss tremendously if that sense was lost.

How about you? What sense could you not live without?