Surviving Tasteless Times
What my scars try to teach me
For several weeks in early 2015, an ulcer in my mouth turned each meal into a small serving of misery. When I saw the doctor, he wasn’t concerned. “Come back in a month if it’s still bothering you,” he said.
Spoiler alert. Things get tasteless.
I should have listened to my body. Maybe I should have found a new doctor. But I was busy.
Busy. Busy. Busy.
When I returned to the doctor’s office a few weeks later, it hurt to say, “It’s getting worse.”
As he peered into my mouth, he grew quiet and took a biopsy.
You may think this is unspeakable
I would rather not talk about oral cancer. Is tumor humor just too tasteless?
During radiation treatment for jaw cancer, my taste buds were destroyed and I tasted nothing for three months. So I know I can survive without good taste. But only for a while. And now we all live in a pandemic of tastelessness, I feel qualified to take my experience quite literally.
Whereas in the past, I took things dis-figuratively.
The first round seemed like a big deal — at the time.
