No Hernia Hoodoo

            On Saturday morning, having already worked out the chords for the first verse and the chorus of “J’suis snob" by Boris Vian, I started copying those to the rest of the song.

            I finished memorizing “Les capotes anglaises" by Serge Gainsbourg and worked out the first chord.

            When I got to the food bank line-up the red car from the church group was already parked in front and had started handing out their pizzas. They were parked right beside the bike post ring where I locked my bike. The tall, slim man of East Asian descent was piling up the pizzas at the tailgate of the car while the short, middle-aged white woman with the bleached blonde hair was handing them out. She started speaking loudly and telling people to form a straight line. The even louder big woman whom I’d always thought was Jamaican argued that the city garbage bin was in the way and so they couldn’t form a straight line.

            I walked to the back of the line where Veronica was. She asked me to go back to the car and get her a pizza so she could see if they were mouldy this time. I told here there was too much of a line-up and she could see from someone else’s pizza. A guy came and showed her that his pizza had no mould but suddenly we heard the loud woman complaining to the blonde woman that her pizzas were mouldy and she threw all or parts of them in the garbage. I commented that it seems the Jamaicans are the only ones that speak up but Veronica, who is from Jamaica said the woman doesn’t have a Jamaican accent. My second guess was that she was Trinidadian. When she came to sit on the steps of 1501 Queen Veronica asked her where she was from and she confirmed that she was Trinidadian. She said that she used to live in Winnipeg where she didn't have an accent there because there were no other Trinis there. It wasn’t until she moved to Toronto that she got her accent back.

            Veronica noticed that less people are lining up for the pizzas since they discovered that some of them are mouldy. I commented that none of the pizzas the food bank gives out are ever mouldy. I told her that I’d learned from my research that the food bank is considered a food premises and so it’s subject to inspection by the Toronto Board of Health. I added that the problem with anybody that gives out food on the street is that there is no law against what they are doing unless someone gets sick. Then the one that became ill would have to prove that it was the donated food that caused the illness.

            The church people were also giving out muffins, cookies and bags of bagels. There were no reports of any of those items having gone bad.

            I told Veronica that I’d done some research and found that her shortness of breath that keeps her from walking could definitely be caused by her hernia. I suggested that if she can't breathe properly until she has a hernia operation and can't have the hernia operation until she loses weight, she really has to lose weight. She said that since it was her cancer surgery that caused the hernia, she’s reluctant to go under the knife again. She told me that she wants to find out if there's a way to push the hernia back in with exercise and she asked me if I would research it for her.

            If her surgery caused her hernia it’s an incisional hernia, which happens in up to 10% of abdominal surgeries. Her surgery caused a flaw in the abdominal wall through which a hernia developed. Even after repair a hernia can return. She asked me to find out if there are exercises or if there’s a belt that can be worn push the hernia back in. There are corsets, binders and trusses but they can’t push a hernia back in. They merely hold it in place and relieve discomfort while one is waiting for surgery or if surgery can't be done. These garments have to be used with a doctor's supervision. Yoga exercises can’t close the gap but after surgery yoga can help strengthen the abdominal muscles to prevent a recurrence. Large hernias have twice the chance of recurring after surgery. But a large hernia needs surgery. In some cases one can exercise and get relief from a small hernia to the point that one doesn't notice one has it but that’s not the case with most hernias and especially not a large one. I would conclude from my research that Veronica needs surgery and therefore she needs to first lose weight and exercise to strengthen her abdominal muscles. So the bad news for Veronica is that in the worst case scenario there’s a 30% chance and in the best case a 10% chance of her hernia returning after surgery, but without surgery there’s a 100% chance of her keeping the hernia she has.There's no magic solution and no hernia hoodoo to make it disappear.

            The numbers were given out early and I got number 33. As I got close to the front, Marlena let another group of five in but stopped an elderly woman of from East Asia because her number was too high for that group. She said to the scruffy guy who’s always hanging around by the door, “She pretends she can’t understand English but she does!” This is a xenophobic trope that I’ve often heard and it always seems to be in reference to old Chinese ladies. It’s possible to understand some English but still be confused. It doesn’t mean someone is pulling wool over your eyes. The scruffy guy responded with another xenophobic trope, “If she can’t speak English why did she come here?” Chances are she was brought here by one of her children, who probably speak English fluently. The hardest thing for an older brain to learn is a new language. The scruffy guy is the same one who threatened to punch out the old man a few weeks ago when he was confused about his place in line. He seems to have a thing for bullying old people.

            I got ahead of Veronica because I took the stairs and she took the elevator but since I was still lined up at the desk when she came up behind me I let her in front.

            The first set of shelves had a lot of the usual crackers, granola bars, cookies, taco kits and cereal. Since my shelf was full of most of that stuff I grabbed what was unusual.

I got a bag of Kerr’s creamy caramels in three flavours: chocolate pomegranate, peppermint mocha latte and gingerbread cookie. Kerr’s is a Toronto candy company that has been around since 1895.

I grabbed a can of Cha’s Organics tropical fruit in juice from Sri Lanka. Cha’s organics donates 1% of the sales of its coconut milk to protect Sri Lanka’s wild elephants. Their website also promotes the Indian ayurveda alternative medicine system. Traditionally ayurveda has an ancient practice within the manufacture of its medicines called rasa shastra in which they add various minerals and metals, including lead, arsenic and mercury to herbal medicines. It’s similar to the dangerous alchemical medicines that were used in Medieval Europe. The ingredients listed on this can were just pineapple, papaya, mango, rambutan and watermelon in pineapple juice. Cha’s Organics is owned by a partnered couple whose main company is Sahana Ayurvedic Products Incorporated. The ingredients come from Sri Lanka but they are based in Montreal.

            The main canned section only had chickpeas and black beans. I took a tin of garbanzos as usual.

            The next set of shelves was almost empty and there were just a few cartons of rice milk.

            I didn’t take anything from the pasta and rice section.

            Angie offered the usual milk, yogourt, eggs, frozen generic ground chicken and hot dogs. There was also some kind of tofu meat imitation. I just asked for a container of cottage cheese and so Angie gave me an extra one. There were also hand bagged two-bite brownies that had been in President’s Choice bags the week before. They didn’t taste as fresh as the previous ones.

            While I was fishing a large pretzel and a round loaf of raisin-cranberry bread out of the baked section, Angie handed me something she thought was “shredded cheese”. I took her word for it but if I’d read the package I would have found out it was a vegan non-dairy product and I would have turned it down.

            From Sylvia’s section I passed on the potatoes, since I still had plenty, but I got a red pepper, a pack of sweet brown grape tomatoes, three apples and two peaches.

            From the “take what you want” section by the door I took a bag of organic cherries and three yellow mangoes. About half the cherries were not rotten.

            The shelves were pretty sparse this time around but for vegetables and fruit this was a pretty good day at the food bank and the bread section had a lot of variety as well.

            I took my food home to put it away and then headed down to No Frills where I bought two bags of cherries, two bags of black sable grapes, a basket of Ontario peaches and a container of Greek yogourt.

            I took a bike ride before going home, taking King to Roncesvalles, north to Dundas, east to Brock and south to home.

            For lunch I had three corn crackers with old cheddar cheese.

            I did some exercises in the afternoon.

            I worked on my journal.

            For dinner I had a toast pizza with a slice of bread, tomato sauce and old cheddar while watching parts 18 and 19 of Victory at Sea.

            Part 18 was about the liberation of the small coral island of Peleliu on the way to the Philippines. It came to be called bloody Peleliu. There was a lot of the usual fighting but this had several close-ups of sombre faces of soldiers. The Japanese were outnumbered but resisted for two months and most fought to the death. This was a controversial battle because the strategic value of the island was low and the cost was high. The US lost 2,300 and the Japanese lost 10, 600 of 11,000. The end showed the real heroes, the medical personnel that helped sew these fools back together.

            Part 19 was about the battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in October 1944 before the liberation of the main part. The Japanese threw their entire fleet into the fight in the form of three forces from three directions but the Allies have set a trap. The US had 100,000 troops. This was the single largest naval engagement in history. The giant Musashi becomes the first battleship in history to be sunk entirely by planes. PT boats trained to attack anything afloat with no defence but speed patrol the strait. They attack the fleet first. Behind them are the destroyers, behind them are the cruisers and behind them the battleships. The Japanese have the largest warship ever built, the Yamato. Five US ships are sunk before the Japanese retreat. But the third Japanese force descends from the north with their carriers. Theirs is a suicide mission to draw fire while the other forces attack. After this battle Japan ceased to be a naval power. The US lost seven warships and the Japanese twenty-six.