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5:52pm March 14, 2013

I can smell things.

My evening staff person has the same cold I just got over. And he reeks of that bug. I don’t know what it is that makes people smell different with different illnesses but colds have a distinct smell.

So apparently do some forms of cancer. I knew once before anyone else (including the person or her doctors) did, that someone’s cancer had come back. Because of her smell in general plus the smell of anything coming from her bowels. Fortunately she got it diagnosed and treated.

And I think these are things most people could smell if they bothered trying to use their sense of smell. Mine may be a little more acute than usual, but it’s also that I never learned I wasn’t supposed to use it. And it’s less likely to go all wonky than vision or hearing so I use a lot of it.

But it interests me that diseases have smells, and I always wonder what exactly creates the smell. And often if there is a smell, people are told to look for “foul smelling” breath, mucus, feces, etc. But really there are dozens of foul smells that are all completely different.

I can also tell my family apart by smell and have done so since childhood.

They have done experiments showing people can smell things about other human beings better than they expect to. I think I’ve just… never not expected to use my nose for things.