Dawn & Malisse’s Story: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Sense of Smell and Taste in Children
Dawn Kafi is a mum whose 11-year-old son Malisse tested positive for Covid-19 on September 20. He began his 10 days isolation and despite initially having no symptoms and feeling quite well, Malisse suddenly lost his taste and smell and everything was making him vomit. He started saying food was off and it continued to get worse. Dawn said “Food tasted like sewage and poo and water tasted like rotten eggs and he would keep throwing up. And it wasn’t just food. It was supermarkets, the smell of cars going past it all made him retch. I didn’t know what to do or what it was. I stopped cooking so there were no unpleasant smells in the air and we tried everything to get him to eat.
“He’d been really good with Covid. He had no symptoms and he always wore his mask because his brother is severely disabled and he kept everyone safe, but all of a sudden he just stopped eating. He would look at it and start gagging. He couldn’t cope with the smells and physically couldn’t eat. We couldn’t go to the supermarket, it was horrendous.”
Dawn said after his isolation period and worried for her son who was ‘tired and cold all the time’, she contacted ENT at Alder Hey who gave a diagnosis of parosmia and given a steroid nasal spray.
However, after trying everything to get her son to eat, from smaller portions to pegs on his nose and nasal sprays, Malisse continued to deteriorate.
On October 21st 2021, he was taken to Alder Hey’s A&E department and countless blood tests were undertaken but still the family was told nothing seemed to be immediately wrong.
Dawn said her son continued to not eat and was really poorly but was eventually discharged from ENT.
She added: “He was initially admitted for dehydration not the fact he hadn’t eaten a morsel of food for weeks. He was literally eating nothing and he still isn’t eating now.
“He was initially put on IV fluids but that was taken out the next day and he’s just been deteriorating every day. He lost 2kg of weight in the space of two days and now weighs 42kg despite always being a chunky monkey. He’s lost a significant amount of weight, a huge amount.
“He was in plus size uniform and just loved his food. Now, he can’t even stand up and can’t hold his own head up, he’s so ill and his eyes are all sunken in and black. I don’t know how that was allowed to happen.”
Dawn went on to say: “We had never heard of the condition before. Doctors didn’t know what Parosmia was either. I contacted Fifth Sense who understood the situation and provided support to help me to help my son
Dawn said it was ‘heart-breaking’ seeing her son deteriorate and was worried at one point ‘he would die’ if action was not taken.
After ten days in the hospital and no improvement, a decision was made to put Malisse on an NG tube, almost 50 days after the initial concern.
Dawn said: “When he was admitted to the ward there was a plan in place that he would be treated like he had anorexia, even though he hadn’t but we still had to wait for the NG tube.”
In January 2022, his parosmia is still a problem but it is beginning to improve and he has some ‘safe’ foods that he can eat including salmon, tortilla wraps, dairylea, melted raspberry ice cream and pomegranate juice.
Dawn said: “Things are improving slowly but he is still extremely tired and cold all the time, and he is very pale. He’s still very skinny and he has lost a lot of muscle. It has caused him a lot of ill health, including ongoing bowel issues and pains in his legs. The work that Fifth Sense are doing to raise awareness is really good. hat’s really good, we have to keep being vocal and telling people about this.”
She said: “More people need to be made aware and stop saying it’s because children are fussy eaters or their parents let them eat junk. Malisse was left to suffer.
“The country is finally waking up to parosmia in children it’s very real. Parosmia is not a behavioural issue and I never want another child to suffer the way my child has”
Parts of this story are excerpts taken from the Liverpool Echo By Aaliyah Rugg 12th November 2021
