I LOST MY sense of smell when the flu ripped through our household last November. My seven-­year-­old got it first. After four days of stubborn fever, I remembered the rapid tests I’d purchased months earlier. A magenta line formed, bright and obnoxious, against the influenza B mark on the plastic cassette. A week in, my ten-­year-­old was also unwell, and three days later, it was my turn. I drove the kids to school in a fog, my nerves torturing my body with aches and an unbearable sensitivity to hot and cold.

I don’t know when my sense of smell vanished, exactly. It left without fanfare, sometime during the days of fatigue and snot and rattling 4 am coughs. But I clearly recall the first time I noticed it was gone. One morning, after the worst of the flu had subsided, I raised my bar of deodorant to my nose, a morning ritual I hadn’t realised I’d adopted. Instead of sensing the familiar waft of citrusy freshness through my sinuses, my nose drew a blank.