I’m sure most of you are tired and ‘over’ hearing the words “COVID”, “mask”, “social distance” and now “the Delta Variant”. Don’t worry, because I am too. However, I still want to bring up COVID once again because everyone needs to be more aware of the effects.
Last semester, I wrote an article about my taste and smell being gone for about six months. Now, I am writing as my one-year anniversary is approaching and I am still without taste and smell. Never in my life did I think I could have two out of five of my senses taken away from me. In addition, I never thought a virus that could do this to anyone, in any health condition, would go ignored by so many people. While I still update my doctor on my current situation, everything is still up in the air with no further knowledge of when my senses will come back. Instead, I am just labeled as a “long hauler of COVID” and am given no more information than “you just have to wait it out.” I know that there are many kids out there, especially at Bradley University, who are going through the same events as me. With that being said, I hope life will go back to ‘normal’ as soon as possible for you.
One of the things that I have to deal with because of having no taste and smell is asking others around me, especially my current roommates, if they smell gas or something burning in the apartment. Before school began, actually, we had to move to the third floor of the apartment complex from the first floor because we had a sewage issue, and according to others, our apartment smelled horrible. If I lived alone, I would have no idea that we had a sewage problem and I would have been inhaling it all day. Moments like these make me realize that we rely on our bodies working so much that once something that you use every day is taken away, you have to change the way you live on a daily basis. Something as simple as identifying spoiled milk in the fridge cannot happen anymore because you can’t smell it or taste it to know if it’s bad because it would taste perfectly fine to me (yes, this has happened sadly).
Though becoming blind or deaf has a greater impact on your life, losing two senses at once still impacts your mental health greatly. I am here to tell you that COVID is something that you should care about and that you should find a way to become vaccinated if you are not currently. Just having a piece of mind that you have a lower chance of getting a virus that will change your body, possibly forever, is better than always worrying about it every time you go out. I used to have very bad memory issues, and while those are becoming better, I am still left with the same attention span as a campus squirrel. Of course, my situation could be so much worse. I am very grateful that I have not lost any loved ones due to COVID, however, my heart goes out to everyone who has. COVID is real, it is still happening and we can all do our part to fight it.