Perdition thy Name is Hernia: Part Two

But back to the Drive to the Hospital…

The morning of the 14^th of February 2012 began like most others during the fasting period prior to my hernia ‘repair’. A Seven Minute boiled egg, no salt, no bread, no butter, nothing but white and yolk. To be honest, it really was an excellent break from the countless bowls of salted oatmeal. Two mugs of black coffee and a nice 4027 Pink Grapefruit would have to fuel me until arriving at the “Hernia Repair Centre” just north of Toronto.

I was excited, not for the minor surgery (so I envisioned), but for eating bread. Yes, no mystery here, no backward or double entendre..I missed bread. Toast, rolls, cookies, buns, monte-cristos, rye, black bread, CAKE, SQUARES, YULE LOGS. Basically, anything made out of ground golden grains, I didn’t care which one, I didn’t care how it was put together! A Bagel? Sure! Unleavened Matzo? Why Not!

I also missed Pasta, another beautiful and unmistakably Bready accoutrement to any upstanding wine fuelled meal. And, you know perfectly well, as does anyone with any sound and strong north American sensibility, what best accompanies pasta…Garlic Bread. Yes, two bread offerings with one delicious and practical plate of food. These thoughts plagued me as I drove up the 401 to meet my fate. Thoughts, that really were benign and happy, ran round and round in my head. Not once did my usual Pessimism and Doubt, and Hate and Paranoia set in…in such thoughts as, “Hmmmm, I wonder if I am underestimating the surgical procedure?” or “Hmmm, are the surgeons trained in North American Medical Schools or at the South Manila School for Paediatric Para-Psychology?” or “Was it just me, or did the hospital website seem a little too ‘Experimental MS procedure’ and not enough ‘stolid medical claims backed up by peer-reviewed journals?”…Nope, just this recurring mantra: “Bread, Ice Cream, Chocolate, Beer, Wine, Scotch, Taco flavoured chips, Chips, Peanuts, Rum and Coke, Popcorn, Hot Dogs, Hamburgers! Poutine! Cake! Root Beer Float!”

I listened, with my wife and daughter, to Steely Dan. A wondrous band that echoes deeply and resolutely all of my prejudices and inferences about all things and twists such prescient musings with musicianship that is rarely matched. Good driving music too. The bass-line from ‘Peg’ rattling out and bouncing soundly, that only a Black Man (Chuck Rainey) on Bass can do (I don’t care if that is a racist statement....although not all black men can or should dance, just watch Monique…er, I mean Ice Cube, try and C-Walk on the ‘Up in Smoke’ documentary, and you will know what I mean). Those thoughts of food and lazy conversation filled the car-ride…the usual banter: crapping on the bad-drivers, railing against ‘texting’ in the car (The horror!), stupid merging lanes, Delivery Vans, the usual questions and complaints about the GTA such as ‘This monstrosity goes all the way to London, you know that’s happening, it’s totally going to happen in ten years.” Until suddenly, just after passing a huge Buddhist temple (we are talking Forbidden City Dimensions) with massive Chinese Characters written on a football length grass mound (reminded one of driving into Pyongyang) we pulled into the hospital grounds. The grounds formerly owned by a Globe and Mail publisher from the 1930s….A massive, plantation like mansion (similarities that would expand from mere architectural associations).

Yes, we had arrived at The Hernia Hut. I had been there before of course, as my preliminary examination fell in early December. I was looked over by a youngish homosexual surgeon, with immaculate hands and a finely honed moustache. He was impatient, and exclaimed that I was to lose five pounds prior to February or that I may be ‘refused service.’ Yes, my weight as my credit. As explained, I was put on a diet that emphasized the absolute negation of carbohydrate intake. This diet lasted forty days. I did not drink pop; I did not eat anything that I enjoyed. By day thirty-five of canned tuna or, god forbid, that grimy, greasy, sludgy, nastiness known as sockeye canned salmon, I was ready to commit all manner of atrocity to eat a hamburger, or to soothe my white rage with pint after pint of F+M’s Harvest Ale.

The break from beer was the hardest, most arduous task… We are talking about Western World problems, and quite frankly, they should not elicit any sympathy from any reader. The purpose of this project is to tease, to amuse, to formulate fun in the minds of an increasingly robotic, boring, placid, tepid, white rice, clear brothed, ‘team-building’, nanny-state inculcated species of post-human mediocrity. I will state now, and will state in the future: Reject the 21^st Century.

More on that later and back to the beer problem. As anyone who knows me can attest, to paraphrase an American writer of the last century, I have a “powerful thirst for the hops.” That would redefine the meaning of understatement, would expand the definition and nuance of understatement into a realm not yet known. To wit: A black hole to gravity as my magnetism to hops would approach a preposterous understatement. The thought of pints of beer danced elegantly in my mind at first, yet by the end, approached the fever of an Afghani riot in response to a garbage bag full of Korans having been burned by a mindless and ‘satanic infidel’ named Fred after a night of nachos and diet-Pepsi at Delta-Charlie District Camp 6, Kandahar. But, as I entered the Hospital on the 14^th I was ready for any manner of food and drink, calm and placid, time to get this thing out of the way. My next four days were to be woven by madness, blinding and masked pain, delirium, fear, doubt, paranoia, and the NHL.