I thought you guys might find this interesting. This is the story of how I lost my sense of smell. Back in 2011 while I was working in construction, I fell from a height of somewhere between 8 and 10 meters and landed on concrete. I broke many bones, including, ankle, lower leg, knee cap, femur, several fingers, wrist, lower arm, upper arm, many ribs, collarbone, back, neck, nose, cheekbone and skull. I broke 6 of my vertebrae (in my neck and back) but according to my doctor, the fractures were so ‘neat' that my spinal cord was completely unharmed. I am told this is incredibly lucky, so I am grateful for that. I have no memory of the fall, because the damage to my brain was sufficient to cause permanent loss of memory. I also lost memory of the previous 3 – 4 months before I had the accident. So it felt like I had time travelled and woken up in hospital. My doctors found it hilarious when I told them what I study at university. Neuroscience :lol:. Considering the horrible amount of damage to my frontal lobe, my doctors tell me it's miraculous that I am in no way impaired by it. ‘You really have dodged a bullet there' my doctors told me. Now to my sense of smell. The most badly broken bone in my body was my scull. It shattered into lots of small pieces which dug their way into my brain. A chunk of my scull dug itself neatly into a part of my brain called the olfactory cortex – this is where the nerve from our nose leads to – and it's where we make sense of all that smell information. The damage to this area has completely removed my sense of smell. I am told it will most likely return after 3 – 6 years… so I'm patiently waiting. I was only in hospital for a few months because I recovered ‘surprisingly fast' from my injuries. I've gone so long without a sense of smell that I can't even remember what things used to smell like. I wouldn't have thought it's possible to just ‘forget' but yep I've forgotten. It is particularly weird not being able to smell weed. But I definitely look forward to smelling it once again . Anyway, thanks for reading .
That's insane, mate. Glad you're alright, at least relative to what could have happened. Do you think your sense of smell will come back gradually, or all at once? I'd imagine it's gradual, but if I woke up one day after years of not smelling anything, and suddenly I was filled with the scent of... oh, say, weed and frying bacon... I'd probably cream in my pants right then and there.
Yea I've wondered what it might be like. I just hope the first thing I smell is something nice. It would be such a let down if the first thing I smell is something like a fart although I'd be happy either way :lol: If it does end up being something nice like weed and frying bacon I might look something like this: