Losing my Sense of Taste

I am losing my sense of taste.

No, really.

(Comments from the peanut gallery are unnecessary, thank you very much! Especially the murmurings of siblings.)

I really can't taste much anymore.

My tongue is all sore and burny. And, no, it isn't another MSG binge - I swear - I haven't had ANY Salt and Vinegar flavoured anything for ages. In fact, last night at the movies, the S&V flavouring was completely MIA. On all the flavour counters - absent. I checked. We ended up with a dash of cream cheese and chives which the mother of the year insisted would be a nice change. I can't tell you what an unfulfilling experience that was. It was like putting a spoonful of orange sorbet in your mouth, only to discover that someone froze cooking fat in the orange sorbet container. Blergh!

But back to my loss-of-taste-dilemma.

Since my baby was hospitalised, I, the mother, seem to have been afflicted with a mild case of, er, how shall I say? Stress, maybe? Unbeknownst to me the bloody stress gremlins set up fort on my tongue and have invaded individual taste-buds with serious consequences to the rest of the organ. The strongest muscle in my body has decided that the vermin in her tastebuds will bring all functioning to an abrupt and rather inconvenient standstill. This means that eating, swallowing, talking and kissing will from now on be left to the skeleton staff. And since my tongue has no skeleton, I'm in a bit of a pickle. (Not that I'd be able to know I was in a pickle for sure, being unable to actually distinguish a pickle's flavour from, say, the mouldy finger biscuit that's been carried around in the bottom of my handbag for the last millenium or so.)

The burning, swollen, blister-bedecked tongue I am punished with after a MSG binge is bearable. Because I deserve it. But this out of the blue affliction just seems so unfair.

In true nurse-style, I proceed to self-diagnose. Maybe it's gingivitis, on my tongue. I could try an anti-bacterial mouthwash. Or perhaps it's thrush. I'll need to doctor it with some anti-fungals. But there are these strange pock-marks erupting on the tip - like the tastebuds are dying. They are dying. I've got tongue-leprosy. I'm never going to be able to talk again. My tongue is going to fall off in my sleep. I'm going to choke on it. Is my will prepared? Have I got any outstanding "issues" to deal with? Unspoken regrets, unrequited loves, outstanding apologies, longstanding appointments to cancel. My personal matters seem to be in order. Well, enough that I can go to bed, anyway. Maybe we'll speak again. Maybe we won't...