Beech Tree News Network

My senses have staged a revolt.  I’m not referring to my sense—common or otherwise—I’m talking about my five senses.  It’s like they are conspiring against me.  

I’ve never had a good sense of smell, well at least since I was in elementary school.  I had a lot of nose bleeds as a child.  I can smell herbs, but I can’t smell most flowers.  There are some foods I can’t smell, and I can’t smell rotten stuff.  You would think that would be a plus, and sometimes it is, like when I worked at the oil change place, and manure-covered farm trucks came in for oil changes or when a chicken truck went through the car wash.  Everybody around me would be gagging, but I couldn’t smell it.  On the downside, I can’t smell meat that has gone bad…I depend on Garey to keep us from getting food poisoning. 

I have carpal tunnel in both wrists and trigger fingers on both hands, so that takes care of my sense of touch.  That has been going on for so long, I don’t even pay attention to it anymore.  My sense of taste hasn’t given me any real trouble, but I probably shouldn't have said that, because I might have just jinxed it.  All of the aforementioned deficiencies in my senses are annoying at most, but the real challenge came when my eyes and ears started to malfunction.  

My eyes started it, and I remember exactly when it happened.  I was driving back from Alabama last fall, when I had the sensation of contacts floating around in my eyes.  I don’t wear contacts, never have, but it felt like what I imagined contacts would feel like floating around in my eyes.  I stopped in Bowling Green at my ophthalmologist.  She said I had small blisters under my upper eyelids and my oil glands were stopped up, causing dry eyes.  Here’s a fun fact I never knew, you need oil to make your tears stay in your eyes, otherwise your eyes dry out.  

The ophthalmologist prescribed two types of eye drops, one cost over $200.  The bottle held 5 ml, that’s a teaspoon.  At $200 for a teaspoon, you would think it would work.  It didn’t. She prescribed more eyedrops, which helped a little.  I still have to rotate heat and cold on my eyes at night when I watch TV.  There is one thing that has given me more relief than anything else.  Garey suggested I put cucumber slices on my eyes, like they do during spa treatments.  I’d tried everything else, so I decided to give it a go.   I lay on the couch one night with cucumber slices on my eyelids for ten minutes.  When I removed them, it was instant relief.  My eyes haven’t felt that good since all this craziness started.  I bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t walk around with cucumbers on my eyes, so Garey suggested I get an eye patch to hold a slice in place then rotate eyes.  I am seriously considering it.

My sinuses had a rough winter and early spring, which caused a lot of wax build up in my ears.  I could tell it was getting bad, because other people’s voices started sounding muffled.  I ignored it until my daughter came to see me one day and turned on the TV that I watch most of the time.  “Good grief, Mom!” Natalie said, “Has Dad been watching this TV?”  

I ordered one of those ear-cleaning kits from Amazon.  The one where you put drops in your ears for four days, then flush your ears with water on the fifth day.  Garey helped me.  He removed enough wax from my ears to make a good size tealight candle.  

There are a lot of spiritual and metaphysical advisors out there that could tell me why I’m having so much trouble with my senses.  I’m sure their diagnosis would include some emotional or spiritual imbalance on my part.  Most of those advisors suggest it’s stress that causes physical illnesses, which makes me stress even more.  When I expressed concern over losing my sight and hearing to Garey, he said everything would be alright, as long as I don’t lose my sixth sense—my sense of humor.  Leave it to Garey to keep things in perspective.