Before the exams, Kate noticed something she couldn't explain: her smell had changed.
According to his story, he washed clothes and sheets, but that particular olfactory sensation continued to re-enter. He described it as an unusual set of smells, similar to a hangover mixed with wet wood, with a note reminiscent of cinnamon.
He spoke with the doctor almost as he tells a difficult intuition to prove.
After further investigation, according to his account, she was diagnosed with a non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
After the treatment something happened that, for Kate, made that coincidence even more difficult to ignore: along with the disease the smell also disappeared.
A few months later, he recounts that he had been perceived again and discovered, through the exams, that the lymphoma had returned. He later smelled similar, but not identical, and also received a diagnosis of thyroid cancer.
His experience opens a fascinating chapter, but it is important to make a distinction: perceiving a particular smell is not a recognized method to diagnose a tumor and the human nose cannot replace visits, analysis or other medical examinations.
However, there is a biological base that makes it interesting to study phenomena of this type.
Our organism produces volatile organic compounds, molecules that can be eliminated through breathing, skin and other body fluids. Some diseases, including certain tumors, may change these chemical profiles.
It is precisely on these tracks that concentrates part of scientific research: not only through animals trained to recognize specific odorous signals, but also through tools designed to analyze molecules present in the breath and other biological samples.
This does not mean that every change of body smell conceals a tumor. The possible causes are many and often much more common.
And above all it does not mean that there is only one “odor of cancer” recognizable by people.
But it means that the body continually produces information that medicine is learning to interpret better and better.
Kate is convinced she owns an olfact outside the commune.
Science, for now, cannot transform its personal experience into a diagnostic test.
But the question that this story leaves open is surprising: how many information about our health might already be in the air we breathe before we learn how to interpret them?