everything smells

[Guest guest]

Not sure if I am still subscribed to the group so I don't know if this will post or not -- hopefully it will.

As some of you know I have left the group because I am dealing with stage 4 (metastatic) breast cancer. It is not curable, although my chemotherapy treatment is going well right now in terms of shrinking the tumors. For those who are interested you can email me for the address of my blog. I won't be reading responses on the Samters' group directly.

In the meantime, I have had a couple of strange things happen. This is my third time with breast cancer and the other times my Samters basically went away during the treatment, presumably due to a combination of steroids and the chemo doing whatever it does to the immune system. I never did an aspirin challenge while on chemo because that seemed foolhardy but all my other symptoms went away and I never needed to be on any drugs during those times for the Samters.

This time I had whole brain radiation and experienced a strong smell of chlorine and ammonia during the radiation treatments.

Now I have a full sense of smell so strong that I feel like writing a children's book based on the "classic" "Everybody Poops" called everything smells. For those of you mourning your sense of smell (as I did for many, many years) you may find it funny to know that I find almost all smells noxious now. I have a kind of a chemical taste or smell in my mouth or nose all the time, probably from the chemo, but eve very strong, "positive" smells I find gross. My cat's food probably wouldn't smell great anyway, but it's by far the worst thing I have smelled and on occasion it has made me retch. Everything else is somewhere in between, and I am on a constant quest for a smell strong and pleasant enough to take away these other smells.

I know it is a weird thing to say to a group of Samterites, and I really empathize with the loss of smell, as it was probably 15-20 years when I did not smell and missed it (even after surgery and on relatively high doses of prednisone) but I am just surprised that I find basically no joy in smelling now, as I had hoped that I would. I also can't believe how strong and long-lasting smells are. I have to use antibacterial soap due to a high risk of infection and that smell, which I'm sure is designed to be pleasant, is not at all pleasant and stays with me all day long.

I have always tried to count my blessings, to so speak, and counted baby diapers and public restrooms among the things I was glad to have missed (although, sadly, this recurrence of my cancer took away every chance I had at a child) but now the range of smells that turns me off has extended to basically everything except a few foods.

The main other reason I am writing to you folks other than just to check in is I have 2 packs of Advair 500/50 and three packs of Nasonex available that I won't be using, as I will be on chemo for the rest of my life. Email me for details.

Best to all,

Lri