Good Timing But No Flavor

My taste is gone. No, not my impeccable sense of style. 😉 My actual taste for food. But not in the usual Covid way.

Last time, everything tasted like I had a mouth full of copper pennies. This time, it’s the front of my tongue that can taste nothing. The back still has some weird sensations but I am not entirely sure it’s really taste, in the normal sense. And I can’t smell anything. Not one thing.

All this as my other symptoms have gotten markedly better. The waves still come, but they are less intense and further apart. So the troughs are longer in duration. And long troughs mean periods without dizziness. And that means I can take a shower without being afraid of falling in the bath. Heaven! I am clean. I always feel better after a hot shower.

Before I figured out I can’t taste anything, being clean and refreshed, I went out to the barn to re supply my kitchen popsicle stash. The lilac tree is blooming. I stopped to smell a blossom. First, one. Then another. Nothing. I wondered if these were scentless lilacs. Maybe it’s a Galician hybrid. I have never heard of that before.

Popsicles replenished, I opened one up, and…nothing. It tasted like ice. Odd. I know how these are supposed to taste. Like Welches grape juice. (I think only Americans will understand what this is) It’s all I’ve eaten in four days. Now that the intense nausea has passed, with no taste or smell, food seems pointless. This is Covid’s cruel joke. I can think of foods with flavor. A nice spicy curry. Greek chicken and rice with garlic cucumber yoghurt sauce. Spicy tuna roll. Wasabi. A burrito from the taqueria on 17th and Valencia in the Mission District in San Francisco. I actually had a dream about that American football-sized burrito last night. Perhaps it was my body giving me one last glorious sensory experience before cutting me off entirely. I can taste none of those things now.

But, I am on the other side of this thing. Every day I will get better and better, just waiting to test negative to get out of 10 day symptomatic quarantine jail, early. My lung checks with my Dr are just a precaution, I feel sure. Nothing indicates otherwise, in my book. And, hopefully, the taste and smell will return very soon. Although Jeff’s sense of smell never returned to normal post Covid.

I think being so healthy after walking the Camino made it the perfect time for me to get Covid, again. If there is a perfect time. When I was in the best shape to fight it off. If there is a silver lining here, I am opening a food truck on the Camino in the busiest year on record. With a pandemic still in the offing. People from all over the world will show up at our gate dragging the virus with them. Likely, having it now will provide some immunity throughout this season. I had to look hard, but I think that’s the upside of this. It doesn’t taste so sweet (or anything like that glorious San Francisco burrito) right now, but it will, eventually, I’m very sure.