The Smeller and The Puker

So before my rant, let me give you some updates on things.

Mary got a job at another company. She is pretty excited. I actually interviewed with the same company earlier this week and found them to be pretty awesome. I think she’s going to be happy there. She’s hoping I’m going to work there too, but I’m leaning towards another company. It would be cool to work with Mary again though.

I have decided that I’m exhausted on the job hunt thing. I have one more interview on Monday, and then I’m laying low for a while and seeing if anything surfaces. Otherwise I’m going to kill myself flying all over the country giving talks on a hundred different topics. It is mentally and physically exhausting. If nothing happens then I’ll pick things back up in a few weeks.

My mom is not doing so well now. She has a couple of doctors that are stumped and giving up on understanding her symptoms. After she has heard all of my horror stories about how incompetent most physicians are, she’s taking things into her own hands. I have sent her to her doctor with a list of diagnostic tests they need to perform next. I think everyone needs a medical advocate these days. Most people just don’t have one. I taught the medical school students, I KNOW what idiots they are. I currently educate physicians and I’m still not impressed with the median care.

Word of warning for those of you on herbal supplements, I just talked to my third person in 3 months that has had an adverse event because of them. My uncle called this week with significantly elevated liver enzymes. He is the second of my family members to have this happen because of herbal supplements. Additionally, more scientific papers are popping up with similar instances (case studies). There are no FDA regulations on supplements so there are all sorts of impurities in the pills. Both of my family members called me with the same problem and I told them both to quit taking all the herbal shit and then go back for blood work. Perfectly normal. The herbal thing is a nice premise, but with no regulations, they are sticking gravel in those pills to make money. Quality control just costs more and how can you buy your bottle of pills for less than ten dollars if they had to actually MONITOR what was in them? I also had a family friend call me about his newfound kidney failure. Turns out it was the same thing. So for all of you out there taking lots of herbal supplements, beware! If you are going to take them, then do your homework and buy the good stuff that has little inserts talking about how they monitor purity.

So now for my rant…

My Beef This Week

I’m not sure what kind of cruel joke life is playing on me. The older I get, the more acute my sense of smell gets. I can smell when my neighbors in houses on either side of me cook dinner. I can smell garlic on my husband 24 hours after he’s eaten it. I can smell when anyone has had ANYTHING to drink from about 15 feet away. I can smell when people haven’t bathed in more than a day, when most normal people would never notice anything. And passing a fart by me is like trying to pass an 18-wheeler by a bunny rabbit unnoticed.

This heightened olfactory system of mine is something that keeps developing. I’ve always had a keen sense of smell, but it keeps getting keener. It is not something I particularly like since half of what I come in contact with is offensive. I dread going into public bathrooms, sitting next to people who don’t use deodorant, chronic halitosis, and anyone who has eater garlic or onions. I almost vomit or do vomit at least once a week because of assaults on my senses. All of my friends with kids tell me that they develop this when they are pregnant so I’m totally dreading that if we ever have kids I’ll be able to smell the coffee beans in Columbia and my husband won’t be able to touch garlic or onions for 9 months. I truly can’t imagine how much worse it can get. I already have to tell my friends when they have bad breath (if I can’t tactfully get them to take a breath mint or piece of gum) because I would otherwise puke on them when they speak to me.

My mom has a really acute sense of smell and has always been so proud of it. She goes on and on about how she can smell EVERYTHING better than everyone else. I think she was a little bummed to learn Easter weekend that mine is better than hers. I, on the other hand, do not like my new gift. It’s like I’m a superhero: The Smeller, sniffs out crime and missing persons, rights olfactory wrongs.

I’m not really sure what is going on. I previously worked in a morgue and could take all sorts of smelly offenses as you might imagine. I could smell a floater before I entered the building, but it didn’t bother me. No dead body even caused a gag. I always held my friends’ hair when they were puking in the toilet and it never fazed me. Now with my super smelling senses, I know if I got within a 5 mile radius of a morgue or had to be in the same room as puke, I’d puke as well.

Maybe that’s a part of my new evolution. I’m becoming a different superhero: The Puker, pukes on all evildoers to stop injustices. Blugh. Unfortunately, if The Smeller doesn’t tame down, it will be an eternal loop of vomit.