Taste buds

In the fall, when the chemo had taken away my tastebuds, food and drink were necessary chores that provided little pleasure. Another slap in the face to the cancer patient, the inability to taste food results in a lack of motivation to eat at all, at a time when it's really important to eat and keep one's strength up. I ate anyway, because not eating meant I felt really badly; I treated chemo nausea like pregnancy nausea and ate small snacks all the time. I lost the sweet and sour tastes and kept some sour and bitter, which is fine because I like those flavours.

I bring this up because the other night we were at the home of friends, and we were having some wine with our pizza. Not fabulous wine, but good utility wine that tastes fine and compliments the food. Our friends are not wine drinkers and the husband asked me if what we were drinking was good, and I said yes, it's good for this meal. Is it good on the big scale of good wine? No. Good wine is wine you like, and right now I like this, so it's good. It doesn't compare to some of the '07 reds I've had out of Niagara lately, but that's of no consequence. Good wine is wine  you like.

I like wine a lot, and I like it because it is a complicated thing and because I can taste many of the nuances that any winemaker can find. I was worried when I lost my tastebuds, that this ability wouldn't come back, but it seems that after several months everything is completely back to normal in that respect. I realize too that I was worried that I wouldn't have the full range of flavours not because it wouldn't be as much fun to drink wine, but because I wouldn't be able to talk to people about the same kind of wine experience any more. And of course it wouldn't be as much fun to drink wine, and I'd end up just guzzling plonk all the time because what the hell's the point....yeah, poor me. Actually, one recommendation from a friend was to drink sweeter wine when the tastebuds were buggered because those would actually taste pretty good, but that didn't work.

It's not that important any more, just an observation. Now I'm dead tired again, as usual. The Tired is hanging around a lot lately.