My joy!

Right, I’m going to stop writing about me for a change. Was that a sigh of relief I heard?

There is a certain little person in my life that helps ground me and takes me away from my misery that is Anosmia. When I’m around her I’m too busy laughing and smiling to get into those difficult thoughts that drag me down. My niece Lauren is my joy.
When I first found out that I had Anosmia, I was a mess.  I had no energy but still had the need to run, which I know was a bad idea, but I’d always been a runner and I was determined not to stop. It was one day when I ran to my mums, or tried, that I realised that I couldn’t run anymore.
I got to the house exhausted, nearly collapsed, thought I was going to be sick, then had a good cry and rushed off into one of the bedrooms to isolate myself from the world.  I stayed there for most of the afternoon, as I was so unhappy that I didn’t want to see or speak to anybody.

Then there was little knock at the door and in walked my mum with Lauren. She said “Lauren wanted to know what was wrong with you so I explained you were poorly and couldn’t smell or taste anything at the moment. She’s very upset and has asked if she can come and pray for her Auntie Debbie”.
Well what could I say to that? In fact I was so overwhelmed that I started to cry again…good grief!  Anyway she closed her eyes, put her hands together and asked God to make me better, and that she loved me and didn’t like me being ill, it was lovely and made me forget about my problems for a change! The rest of the day was nice after that. I went and played with her and she raced around saying ‘can we colour in, can we play hide and seek, can we play with play dough’, and make a mess everywhere, actually I said that bit once it had been trampled into the floor, squashed onto the table and ended up stuck in her hair! But that wasn’t the end of it, her next idea was to play with her dolls house, yes she has one of those wonderful old fashioned things, in fact it used to belong to me and my two sisters when we were kids and even had our Cindy and Barbie dolls still with it. Ahhhh I feel old! She just about managed to exhaust me once again, but it was ok this time as she is my joy so it was different.

I could quite happily tell you about her all day, as she has me wrapped around her little finger, but I wont. Oh and one more thing, (told you), when I’d come over for lunch, well attempted lunch, if she was there, she’d wag her finger at me, put her hands on her hips and say in a very stern voice “Auntie Debbie you have to eat” then she’d put on this cute little frown, and I’d try…. just for her.  I couldn’t eat a lot but it was better than nothing.  She still checks up on me when I see her and if I am feeling really low, it doesn’t last long, as I cant help but smile and feel good when I’m around her. Auntie Debbie is a big old softie!

So back to me for a titchy bit, sorry. Remember in my last post that I said I was going to give you a little snippet of information about Anosmia in each post well this is my latest. Referenced from the ‘Anosmia Foundation’ website.
Anosmia originally came from the Greek work Osme and is the stem word for medical definitions of smell i.e. Anosmia, Parosmia etc. There are also specific names for taste disorders, and again the name derives from a Greek word, Geusi, meaning taste. These are Ageusia – the absence of taste, Hypogeusia – a decreased sense of taste, and Dysgeusia – an unpleasant sense of taste.

And now I am all written out for today so I’m going to stop there. Please don’t wander too far though as I’ll be back, (no I’m not going to do the Arnold Schwarzenegger impression)!