My flu is long gone, but I still cannot taste or smell my food, wine, or cigars. Ah, the cigars! Should I keep complaining, though, or should I start rejoicing?

Addendum I (March 16, 2009)

I went to a pharmacy soon after I arrived in Zagreb yesterday afternoon. I told the pharmacist on duty that I had the flu a few weeks ago and that my senses of taste and smell were gone. He offered me a saline solution of some sort for my nose. “This will help with the damaged mucous membrane in your nose,” he explained. “By the way,” he continued, “some ninety-five percent of what you taste actually comes from your sense of smell.” Apparently, the tongue picks up only salty, sweet, sour, and bitter tastes. Live and learn!

Addendum II (March 22, 2009)

Exactly a week later I returned to the same pharmacy for another bottle of the same saline solution. “As a matter of fact,” I told the pharmacist on duty, “this thing has not helped me a bit, but…” She was not as garrulous as the pharmacist I talked to a week earlier: “This thing can’t hurt you, either.” And then she suggested that an ear, nose, and throat specialist would be able to tell me more about my perplexing condition. “Thanks,” I waved her goodbye on my way out as if everything was alright. “Fucking flu,” I muttered under my breath when I stepped out of the pharmacy.

Addendum III (September 17, 2015)

So many years later, my senses of taste and smell are back, although the recovery had been surprisingly long, but they are hardly the same as before. Ever since, I have been slightly impaired. The flu, if that is what it actually was, got the better of me for good. And this is what I have heard from many people in the intervening years. They, too, had had some kind of flu, and their senses of taste and smell were changed by it in a lasting way. It may well be that age is a part of the equation, though. As years go by, the senses gradually decline. Still, I have a feeling that the flu I got so many years ago was kind of special. Unforgiving, too.