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I'm a 29 year old chick living in the South. I'm married to Kim - happily married most of the time. Our daughter is 8-year-old Bailyn. I work in the I.S. Department of a nearby hospital. Oh, and I'm a pagan living in the Bible Belt.

I love reading, cuddling with Kim and Bailyn, working with computers, playing The Sims 2, and waiting anxiously for the release of Sims 3.

2005-05-26 - 4:07 p.m.
I smell car exhaust.

Really. Everywhere...it stays with me. It's really odd, but this happens periodically. Normally, I can't smell anything. Every now and then, I'll get a whiff of something, but it has to bee really strong. When Bailyn was a baby, I couldn't smell her rotten diapers. Someone else would walk up and take her for a split second and hand her back for a change. Having no sense of smell is somewhat of a handicap. I mean, it's nowhere nearly as bad as being deaf or blind, but I won't eat sandwich meat after it's a few days old. I can't smell it if it's bad, so I just throw it out. I also wouldn't be able to smell dangerous fumes from...say, paint thinner or a gas leak. Even with the trouble it causes, I think I got off easy as far as handicaps go.

Enter the car exhaust. I smell it every few months. It'll last a while....a couple of hours to several days. I've verified numerous times that there is no source. There really couldn't be, since it follows me everywhere...home, car, work, Wal-Mart, where ever. It's kinda hard to breathe....I almost feel like I'm suffocating, just like if you were standing in a big cloud of exhaust. It's nauseating and even gives me a headache. Yuck.

I just did a search on "olfactory hallucinations." Some sites were adamant: See a neurologist IMMEDIATELY. It could be a brain tumor. Yeah, maybe. But if it were a tumor, surely it'd have created some other symptoms in the YEARS this particular one has been around. Other sites suggested that it could be caused by an imminent psychotic break. Imminent? Meaning that I'm on the verge? LOL. Well, I wish I'd quit hanging on to this particular cliff. Still other sites suggested epilepsy. I think I have to shoot that one down, too. I don't think I'm having even mini-seizures. Although I wouldn't know if I was, right? Basically, my foray into being a Web MD led me to brick walls. I'll reasearch some more in a bit. Right now, I have to go puke from the effects of the exhaust.

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