Remembering Smell: A Memoir of Losing--and Discovering--the Primal SenseIn November 2005, Bonnie Blodgett was whacked with a nasty cold. After a quick shot of a popular nasal spray up each nostril, the back of her nose was on fire. With that, Blodgett—a professional garden writer devoted to the sensual pleasures of garden and kitchen—was launched on a journey through the senses, the psyche, and the sciences. Her olfactory nerve was destroyed, perhaps forever. She had lost her sense of smell. Phantosmia—a constant stench of “every disgusting thing you can think of tossed into a blender and pureed”—is the first disorienting stage. It’s the brain’s attempt, as Blodgett vividly conveys, to compensate for loss by conjuring up a tortured facsimile. As the hallucinations fade and anosmia (no smell at all) moves in to take their place, Blodgett is beset by questions: Why are smell and mood hand-in-hand? How are smell disorders linked to other diseases? What is taste without flavor? Blodgett’s provocative conversations with renowned geneticists, smell dysfunction experts, neurobiologists, chefs, and others ultimately lead to a life-altering understanding of smell, and to the most transformative lesson of all: the olfactory nerve, in ways unlike any other in the human body has the extraordinary power to heal.
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... causing this peculiar odor? I pulled into a Kwik Trip to top off the tank and check my shoes. Nothing suspicious there. Maybe the heater fan was sucking up the smell from the engine and blowing it through the vent. Was a dead bird in ...
... causing this. “What does it smell like now?” he asked. “Imagine every disgusting thing you can think of tossed into a blender and puréed,” I finally said for lack of any other comparison that I hadn't already banged to death. “Now take ...
... causing the smell, she reluctantly switched me to a different one. She also prescribed a mild tranquilizer for my nerves. I was astonished by its cool efficiency. An invisible hand gently put my brain back in order. Anxiety was erased ...
... causes I'd assigned to the odor along the way: coffee, truck exhaust, my own car. I wanted him to know exactly what the smell was like and how it came in waves with various but all equally awful notes competing for dominance. I could ...
... causing some problems. Problems like yours.” His personal opinion was that the active ingredient in Zicam Cold ... causes of smell dysfunction, Dr. Cushing said. “Head injuries are the more serious of the two. They can permanently ...