I have been told countless times over the past twenty years, what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Is this a true statement? Not from my perspective. Two-plus decades of chronic pain and suffering have not made me stronger. Over the years, I have been diagnosed with and treated for (in order of severity): degenerative spine disease, peripheral nerve pain, gastroparesis, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, osteoarthritis, diabetes, and high blood pressure. I have also been treated for basal cell and squamous cell skin cancer three times, with another treatment forthcoming due to a cancerous growth on my left forearm.
My first battles with health problems date back to the 1980s. Primarily immune system problems, I ended up in the hospital with mononucleosis in 1991. What is called a “kissing disease” for teenagers, for adults, mono is a serious disease that can kill you. I was so sick that I had a 104-degree temperature, my liver and spleen were swollen, as were my lymph glands, and my adenoids and tonsils were pure white from infection. The internist treating me said that there was little he could do for me; that it was up to my body to fend for itself. I eventually recovered. All told, I lost over fifty pounds and was unable to preach for two months. One oddity to come out this is that my normal body temperature is now 97.0 degrees. (Good luck trying to explain to a nurse that 99 degrees is the equivalent of 100.6 degrees — you know, a fever.)
Suffering is part of the human experience. All of us will suffer at one time or another in our lives, and our suffering is unique to each of us. Can suffering make us stronger? Sure, it can, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily does. I know that for me, I don’t see anything redemptive in my suffering. I don’t have pain-free days — ever. I have bad days, less bad days, and days when I want to kill myself. My mobility is greatly diminished, and I am prone to nasty falls. Life is what it is, and I accept that this is life until I die. No magic surgeries or miracle drugs await me. What DOES await is life, and I do what I can to make the most of it.
Has chronic pain and suffering made me a better man? Maybe. I am more empathetic towards the suffering of others. As a fellow sufferer, I understand what they are going through. However, I am more inclined to think that pain and suffering have turned me into a broken man; a man who silently pleads for a day, just one day, without pain. I have found that the only pain-free times in life were when the anesthesiologist told me to count back from ten as I fell asleep.
Please don’t tell a chronic pain sufferer that their suffering is making them stronger. You can’t know this, so instead of pretending you are a mindreader, how about (gently) embracing their suffering with love, kindness, and compassion?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Most people don’t understand chronic pain. They are human, so they understand “pain,” but not pain that comes and never leaves. All of us have faced periods of pain from an injury, illness, or disease, but chronic pain is different. Chronic pain is intractable because it never goes away. Medications, procedures, and treatments may help, but pain eventually returns. No matter what I do, the pain never totally goes away. All I, as a chronic pain sufferer, can do is manage my suffering, and even then, the results are varied.
I’ve been treated for chronic pain for twenty years. Countless drugs, procedures, treatments, and surgeries later, the pain remains. Last August, I had major surgery on my spine that alleviated some of the pain in my lower back. The pain was so severe that I do not doubt that without the surgery, I would have killed myself. Did the surgery “fix” my pain problem? Hell no, not even close. It addressed an issue, for which I am grateful, but one fact remains: there is no cure for my suffering. I know people mean well when they tell me they hope I’m feeling better, but “feeling better” is not an option for me. I have three kinds of days: less-pain days, more-pain days, and I-want-to-shoot-myself-in-the-head pain days. There is never a pain-free day. I function best when I have taken sufficient medication to tamp down my pain to tolerable levels. However, thanks to federal and state laws governing narcotics, I no longer, even with using cannabis, have sufficient daily medication usage that will give me what I need to fully function as a husband, father, grandfather, and writer. Pain doctors don’t help; I’ve seen four pain doctors, without success. My best care comes from my primary care physician, a man who genuinely cares about my well-being. But, he can’t do what he knows his best for me. He is one physician in a corporate practice of hundreds of doctors. The practice has arcane, abusive rules governing the prescribing of narcotics. Five years ago, I was taking the narcotics equivalent of 80 mg of morphine, along with a benzodiazepine for sleep. My pain was relatively managed with this drug regimen. Today? I take 40 mg of morphine equivalent narcotics — half of what I was taking five years ago. I take 20 mg of cannabis at night to help with my sleep, but it is not as effective as benzodiazepines. In other words, I am taking half as much medication to treat pain that is much worse than it was five years ago. I have done all I know to do, so this is my life — day in and day out, without release.
I know that the only cure for my suffering is death. No need to send me unsolicited medical advice, diet suggestions, or anything else you think will magically heal me. I have done my homework, and I have likely tried the very thing you are going to suggest. Do you really think taking a supplement, drinking apple cider, sleeping on magnets, or the latest homeopathic treatment (which is nothing more than water) will cure everything that ails me? What physical power do these things have to make a deteriorating spine rejuvenate itself or cure incurable diseases such as gastroparesis and endocrine pancreatic insufficiency? Give me credit for knowing and understanding my body, and being well educated on the available treatments for my ailments.
I wish my life were different; that I could still run and play with my grandchildren, or work in the yard without spending days in bed recovering, but no amount of wishful thinking will change the fact that chronic pain has crippled me to such a degree that I can no longer do these things. I have accepted that this is my lot in life, and I do everything I can to live another day.
Do you live with chronic pain? Please share your experiences in the comment section. Let’s cry in our beer together. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Readers who have deconverted have likely heard believers tell them countless times: God loves and cares for you. (God being the Christian God of the Bible.) I know I have. Rarely does a week go by without me receiving an email or blog comment from an Evangelical Christian saying that God loves and cares for me. How do they KNOW God loves me? How do they know God cares for me? Just because the Bible says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Saying God loves and cares for me is a claim, as is the all of the Bible. Evangelicals wrongly think Bible verses are evidence for the truthiness of a belief, when in fact, they are claims. What a claim requires for justification is EVIDENCE. Actual empirical evidence, not just saying “the Bible says.”
Saying the Bible is the Word of God is a claim. Saying the Bible is supernaturally inspired, inerrant, and infallible are claims. I’ve engaged Evangelical apologists for almost twenty years. Without question, these apologists are long on claims and short on evidence. In fact, they are so short on evidence that it requires an atomic microscope to see it. Saying God loves and cares for me is an empty claim for which no evidence is forthcoming.
God could prove his love and care for me, but he chooses not to. Either that, or he can’t because he is a mythical being, powerless to act in the natural world. Everything I have seen, both as a Christian and an atheist, suggests that God is deaf, blind, and indifferent to the cries of his creation. “God loves and cares for us” is a grand ideal, but one that is not borne out in real life. God was silent when I prayed and silent when I didn’t. Pray tell, if there is no difference between God interacting with me as a Christian and as an atheist, how can I possibly know he exists and has a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious plan for my life? I am an atheist today because I see no evidence for the Christian God’s existence. If God truly wants everyone to love, know, and follow him, you would think he would, in a no-doubt way, make himself known to us. That he doesn’t suggests that he doesn’t give a shit about us, or he doesn’t exist.
But, Bruce, you were a Christian for fifty years. Surely you believed God loved and cared for you. Sure, but the question that must be asked is this: Why did I believe God loved and cared for me? I spent most of my life in the Evangelical bubble; an environment where every aspect of my life was controlled by my parents’ chosen religion. I was never allowed to examine and judge the central claims of Christianity for myself. I was indoctrinated and conditioned to such a degree that I believed that whatever my pastors, youth directors, and Sunday school teachers taught me was true. This indoctrination and conditioning continued during my college years at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. I was taught WHAT to think, not HOW to think. While I later learned that my pastors and professors lied to me — deliberately or out of ignorance — I still held on to the belief that the Bible was the Word of God. It would be many years before I took a hard look at my beliefs and the claims I made about God’s presence in my life. I wanted to believe God was ever-present. I wanted to believe God loved and cared for me and had a wonderful plan for my life. Oh, there were times when I was certain God was talking to me, meeting my needs, or using me to advance his kingdom. However, a post-Jesus examination of my life revealed that my life was built upon a fiction taught to me by my parents, pastors, and professors, and passed on by me to church congregations I pastored.
If God wants me to believe he loves and cares for me, all he has to do is show me. Those of us who are married know that we show our love and care for our spouse by what we do, and not by what we say. The Bible says God loves and cares for all of us, but these claims are mere words — no different from a man telling his wife he loves her, even though he beats her every day. His behavior says that he doesn’t love his wife. So it is with God. If he wants me to love and follow him, is it too much to ask for God to make himself known to me? If God truly wants to save the world, wouldn’t this goal be best served by him sending Jesus back to earth to make a physical appearance — say, a yearlong show at a Las Vegas casino? Instead, Evangelicals tell us God speaks with a whisper, and if we listen closely, we will hear him. Welp, I am deaf, so perhaps God will text me or send me an email. Better yet, maybe Jesus will knock on my door and invite me to lunch. Now, that will get my attention. Alas, God remains silent, suggesting, at least to me, that he is dead or on vacation.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
In the late 1990s, I started having problems with joint/muscle pain and fatigue. At first, I ignored my symptoms, thinking I was just overworked and tired. After months of pain and tiredness, I decided to see a doctor. The doctor I saw then is still my primary care physician today. It took a year or so to determine I had fibromyalgia. Over the years, I went through a lot of tests and treatments, along with taking more medications than I can count.
I took a variety of pain management drugs, both narcotics and non-narcotics. In 2004, I started taking narcotics such as Tramadol, Darvocet (which was later banned because it caused heart problems), and Hydrocodone. For years, I took both Tramadol and Hydrocodone — upwards to 80 Morphine equivalents a day. I also took a Benzodiazepine, Restoril, for muscle spasms and sleep. And then came the unholy war on opiates — a war my primary care doctor doesn’t support, but is forced to accede if he wants to keep his job and license.
First to go was Restoril. Why? According to so-called experts, taking benzodiazepines and opiates together could cause respiratory problems (typically only in drug abusers or patients lacking tolerance build-up), so I had to stop taking Restoril. From there I tried numerous sleep medications, without success. I finally started using Cyclobenzaprine at night — 20 milligrams. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Tough shit, so sorry, you are out of luck if it doesn’t.
Next to go was Tramadol. “Can’t take two narcotics,” the doctor sadly opined. After weeks of withdrawal hell, I stopped taking Tramadol. I was still taking 50 morphine equivalents of Hydrocodone a day. And then came the edict that my Hydrocodone dosage had to be cut. Last doctor’s visit it was cut to 40 and sometime later this year it will be cut to 30. I have no choice in the matter, and neither does my doctor. Keep in mind, my pain has only gotten worse during this time. Over the past fifteen years, I was diagnosed with degenerative spine disease, gastroparesis, and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. I had numerous procedures, including experimental ones, and two major surgeries. While the surgeries helped address specific pains, my core pain problem remains. This is my cross to bear. Drugs help, but they are not a fix. Cannabis helps (which my doctor doesn’t know I take, because I know he is required to stop my narcotic pain medicine if he finds out I’m using cannabis), but its effects are short-term. Why many doctors refuse to prescribe cannabis is beyond reason. Worse, insurance companies refuse to cover cannabis, so chronic pain sufferers are forced to pay out of pocket for it. In Ohio, cannabis is prohibitively expensive, so I drive to Michigan — thirty minutes away — to get my “fix.”
Over the years, my doctor has referred me to four different pain clinics, without success. None of the clinics was narcotic- or cannabis-friendly; all were run by anesthesiologists who were more interested in performing procedures and giving steroid injections than they were in treating long-term, chronic pain. I found the pain clinics to largely be a waste of time. One doctor, who never looked me in the eyes, said there was nothing he could do for me. Another treated me like I was a drug-seeking addict, even though I have NEVER, not ONE time, abused my prescriptions.
The FDA has admitted that they erred in their directives on opioid use; that people with chronic pain were being unnecessarily harmed, often leading to suicide. Despite new directives, many doctors and pain clinics continue to be narcotics-adverse. I see no hope of it being better any time soon. I’ve concluded that limiting legal liability is more important to doctors — most of whom now work for large corporations — than treating people with chronic pain. I expect there to be an increase in illegal drug use and suicide by chronic pain sufferers. When pain has you screaming and banging your head on the wall, you will do almost anything to make it stop, and that includes killing yourself. Chronic pain sufferers don’t want to die, they just want the pain to stop. And if the pain can’t be stopped, we, at least, want everything possible done to make our suffering tolerable. And let me be clear, when chronic pain sufferers kill themselves, the blame almost always lies at the feet of callous, indifferent medical corporations and doctors.
I don’t need advice or treatment/drug suggestions. I’ve been going at this for twenty-five years. I know my stuff inside and out. I intimately know every inch of my body; what’s causing my pain, and how to lessen it. Well-meaning, but uninformed advice, while humored, is not helpful. From prescription drugs to supplements to alternative medicine treatments, it is likely I have tried them. This post is more about making readers aware of what I personally face and what chronic pain sufferers deal with, in general. If you are a chronic pain sufferer, you know what I am talking about. Twenty years ago, a primary care physician could prescribe narcotic pain medications without question. Today, they have not only their corporate overlords breathing down their necks, they have the FDA threatening to monitor their narcotic prescriptions. Pharmacies face similar scrutiny. Both federal and state regulations make it almost impossible to abuse narcotics via doctors’ prescriptions. Gone are the days of doctor shopping or filling prescriptions early. Narcotic users are now entered into a database accessible by doctors, pharmacies, and law enforcement. This makes it impossible to game the system, as was common years ago. I understand the need for some regulation, but these days the regulations are punitive, leading to needless pain and suffering. Chronic pain sufferers are literally being regulated to death.
Are you a chronic pain sufferer? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Almost six weeks ago, I had surgery on my spine. By all accounts, the surgery was a success. That said, I am dealing with post-laminectomy syndrome:
As many as 20% of U.S. individuals who undergo spinal surgery each year experience back or neck — and sometimes arm and leg — pain after their laminectomy, or spinal surgery.
Some people call PLS failed back syndrome or failed back surgery syndrome. It describes any lingering pain of unknown origin after correctional laminectomy.
Continuing or worsening pain after a laminectomy is just one possibility.
The main symptom of PLS is a lingering pain, most often in the neck or back. You may also feel pain, stiffness, numbness, tingling, or weakness in the arms or legs.
Many people describe the pain as a dull ache, similar to or even worse than before surgery, along the spinal column.
Others may experience a new sharp, prickling, or stabbing pain along their spine or legs post-surgery.
PLS symptoms may last for a long time, especially without treatment.
While medications or nerve block injections can relieve most of the pain, symptoms such as numbness, tingling, or weakness may take up to 1 year to resolve.
If lingering symptoms persist beyond a year, this may indicate permanent nerve damage, and they’re unlikely to go away on their own.
Currently, I have pain in my lower back/tailbone, nerve pain, and numbness in my legs and feet. This pain is different from what I had before. No sharp, biting pain, more of a dull, achy pain. I continue to use narcotic pain medications and cannabis to manage my pain. I can walk short distances without significant pain, though I tire easily.
My bowel and bladder incontinence is marginally improved. I saw an endocrinologist last week for hyperhidrosis — excessive sweating. We are in the weeds now (think Cushing’s disease), trying to figure out exactly what is causing me to sweat profusely. I had some more tests run, including a twenty-four-hour urine test. Nothing conclusive so far. I am waiting to hear back on the urine test
I see my neurosurgeon tomorrow. I am presently using a walker to walk more than a few feet. This was expected. It can take months to totally recover from a laminectomy. Depending on how long the nerves were compressed and how much damage was done, some of what I am dealing with could be permanent. I have resigned myself to the fact that this could be the outcome. One day at a time . . .
As far as gastroparesis, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis are concerned, nothing has changed. Nor did I expect them to change since the surgery had nothing to do with them.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Peanut Gallery, a group of people whose opinions are considered unimportant, a source of insignificant criticism, the cheap seats.
(Repost from 2015. Unedited, except for paragraph formatting.)
A reader named Wayne K sent me two emails, one with some questions I answered and another email objecting to a post I had written about his questions. (What Happened to the Churches I Pastored?)
Here’s Wayne K’s first email:
Hi Bruce,
Regarding the churches you pastored and started, do they still exist today or have they changed their names ? I could not find any of the church’s personal websites. Sorry if you feel I wasn’t trying hard enough. I don’t know what I missed as there are hundreds of ‘google’ links. Another question I have is, why did or what led your mother to commit suicide at 54 ? I have heard a few stories of suicide committed by various people and I am just curious to learn why.
Thanks
Wayne
PS: For your info, I currently do not have a personal website address and I do not live in the United States. I currently do not go to church and I am not an evangelical.
Here’s Wayne K’s second email:
Hi Bruce,
Since January, I have been visiting your blog at least twice a week to get to know you. While you did answer one of my questions, i was able to find some clues about your mother’s suicide from your blog- long after i received your email. In face to face conversations, if you didn’t want to answer my question about your mother’s suicide, you probably would tell me that you prefer not to discuss it, otherwise it would be considered rude not to answer me.
I noticed that you had posted my question on your blog dated March 5. My motive was that i was interested to know, not because i was nosy. Did you decide to post because i didn’t subscribe ?? Just guessing. No, i am not part of a group of tin hat Christians. I almost found this statement offensive. There is no need to assume or presume who I am. I am not interested in friendship with you. I do not doubt whatever and wherever the churches you pastored.
I had other questions for you that is not on your blog but after reading some of your recent posts, i didn’t think it was necessary any longer since i found your blogs disturbing and very negative. I am guessing that since you are a socialist, you are probably on social government assitance like most low life atheist drug addicts.
Bruce, we live in a very deceptive and conspiracy driven world, and it appears to be getting worse. Most or all of the world’s problems are contributed by certain wealthy, influencial people in high places. Here are some of the following groups involved; Islamists, Hinduism, Roman Catholicism/Vatican, atheism, freemasons, satanists, luciferians, evolutionists and agnostics. Google “bohemian groves”, “freemasonry american dollar”, “911 inside job”, “cancer research fraud”, “fluoride deception” on and on I could list so much more. Also click on images for these keywords to view other websites. No conspiracy is a theory if it has been proven.
Furthermore, your blog is more than just shameful and unhelpful. It added to the world’s misery. It doesn’t contain any qualities of love or unity. While it indicates your hidden character, I would be ashamed to follow you or to honor you as the best blogger in Ohio.
Now be cautioned because there is a cultish group in America whose website called atruechurch(dot)info – they may add your name to a list of false teachers? – probably not. I dare you write about them. I would have to agree that you are telling lies and blogging false information about many things. These lies are coming from your own deluded mind. Therefore, I would strongly encourage you to go and do something more useful than spend your wasteful hours blogging and ridiculing the “minorities”. Leave them alone. You appear to be THE real threat.
Regarding the churches you gave me that no longer exist, that doesn’t indicate a high failure rate. Instead of explaining what I mean, let me analyse it this way; YOU are the failure because you didn’t know how to guide your so-called “church”. It appears that Your foundation was ‘fake’ and weak. When you build a house, you need proper foundation or it would collapse. Isn’t that logical Bruce !?? Now, you like to point fingers and blame others for the failures, don’t you ?! There are alot of people who have gone through many bad and worst experiences than you but didn’t start a blog like you and pointed fingers. They just moved on and tried to improve upon where they left off. But you seem to be worse off than when you started in your early years of church. That is a common thing I see among so called “ex-Christians”.
Many people are secretly not interested in your blog Bruce. And I am not interested to visit you either. You don’t sound friendly. I wouldn’t want you to give me advice when I need help or have inquiries about important matters.
Anyways, having much I could say, i am not interest in further correspondence with you.
Wayne K’s first email was quite civil, so I answered him. After doing so, I thought others might have the same question about the churches I pastored, so I wrote a post. Evidently, Wayne K thought the post was all about him. This is a common reaction to my writing. People read a post and think, HE IS WRITING ABOUT ME! Unless I mention someone by name, no one should assume I am writing just about them. I suspect the real issue is that my writing gets a little close to home and they don’t like it.
The next email is from a Kiwi named Kate:
Hi there bruce , i stumbled across your site …. somehow as you do . Yes i am a God fearing believer ,no that that is why i am writing to you.
i have never written to someone like this before, but somehow was very intrigued about your story. Many twists and turns in your life for what ever reason that seem to be quite clear to me reading your blog have lead you to were you are now.
One thing as i read your questions seems to be that your passionate about your family. And yet as a young man having such a large frame and most probably due to your illness do not seem to read health books. my question to you is if you are not going to be with your family in heaven why would you not want to be with them on this earth for as long as you can.
You yourself are writing a book and you have obviously spent countless hours reading studying why you don’t want to believe in god, and yet your passions the most important thing to you on this earth will get the very least of you because you are too busy telling people what you don’t want to do or believe in. i don’t speak to be viscous or negative. but what i know is that our health is crucial to your thinking.
If you are telling the truth that your family are your passion, get well and tell us how you did it and let that benefit some people. start by looking at your food. food is your first medicine. i know in America you can get everything under the sun with some fake name resembling food im not surprised most of you are unhealthy sick or dying.Go on a juice fast for 3-4 months and tell me your not feeling better !!!! or find some diet like the cohens diet. Or blow me over with a feather and jerf …. just eat real food, nothing that comes out of a packet cause its contaminated with goodness knows what.
Anyhow you could read all about it,and cure your self. i hope this doesn’t sound sarcastic it is not at all meant to. So be in health Bruce not in atheism cause theres no meaning to that. Just being alive has a meaning and im sure you matter to your family and they have a meaning to you … you said so yourself.
respectfully kate .otherwise know as a recovering hoshimotos sufferer, curing myself through diet and meaning……my three children my husband and life. its massive that word life !!!
Kate assumes I am NOT eating well. She is certain that me being overweight is because I spend all day eating Oreo cookies, ice cream, candy bars, and Pop Tarts. She is certain that I am killing myself with prepackaged food. How could she know this? Is she a mouse in the cupboard, watching what groceries we buy and observing Polly cook our meals? Of course not.
The food and diet police think that they have all the answers. Just do ______________and all will be well. Oh, if it is only that simple. These days, I find belligerent food Nazis more oppressive than the rankest of Fundamentalists. They are closed-minded, judgmental, unwilling, or unable to understand the complexity of the human body, diet, and the environment. They seek simple answers, quick fixes, and when they descend from the mountain top with the Ten Commandments of Atkins, Cohen, Dash, Weight Watchers, Orinish, TLC, Mayo Clinic, Mediterranean, Flexitarian, Jenny Craig, Volumetrics, Nutrisystem, Paleo, ad infinitum, they go about preaching their new-found gospel to fatties.
Of course, since I wrote this post in 2015, I lost one hundred pounds and watch my diet carefully, Why? Not that I got healthier. I have gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. Trust me, these diseases are an effective weight loss program.
Total cost was $45,000. Surgeon got 8% of the cost. I’m glad we have medical insurance.
I’m home. 🏠 I had to stay an extra day. Lots of pain. A bit better today. I’m on OxyCodone and Zanaflex. Oh, and Tylenol too — medicine’s cure for pain. 🤬🤬 (I’ll be writing about my pain experiences in the days ahead.) I’m using cannabis too.
Some complications that I hope are temporary. Feet are numb. This should go away, in time. Could be permanent too. When nerves are compressed for as long as mine were, there’s no telling what will happen when you decompress them. Sometimes the damage can’t be reversed.
Biting low back pain is gone, as is awful pain in buttocks, back of legs — all the way to my feet. I still have degenerative spine disease elsewhere, with numerous herniated discs and other damage, but decompressing L4-L5 was necessary unless I wanted permanent paralysis and loss of bowel/bladder control. Come to find out, this was a congenital problem. Always has been lurking in the shadows. It just got worse over time. I first saw a doctor for low back pain at age 20.
Of course, my osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, gastroparesis, and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) remain. These, sadly, are incurable. Regardless, I am glad for whatever relief the surgery provides. My goal was less pain and being able to walk again. So far, I’m on the right path.
Biggest concern? Last few years I’ve had a sweating (Hyperhidrosis) problem that no doctor has been able to figure out. When I fall asleep—no matter the duration—I sweat profusely. I mean soak the clothes, sheets, blanket, pillows wet. My body temp is normal when this is happening. Post surgery? The sweating is much worse. Once I’m up on my feet, I plan to see an endocrinologist. Pretty bad my bedding has to be changed twice a day.
Still waiting to see if bladder/bowels return to normal.
I plan to use my walker to do some walking.🚶Maybe to the post office and back — about 4 blocks. My RN nurse sister thinks that may be too much, too soon, but she knows I’m always right, even when I’m wrong. 🤣🤣 Baby sisters, right? (Yes, my humor is starting to return.)
Thanks for caring. 😘 Your words of kindness and support were/are greatly appreciated. ❤️❤️
PS. The cats 🐈⬛ were all waiting at the door 🚪 for me when I came home. Did they miss me? Or did they just think I had food? 🍲❤️❤️🤣🤣 I know I missed them.
Yesterday, I saw a neurosurgeon affiliated with ProMedica in Toledo, Ohio. Over the past three years, I have been dealing with increasing pain in my neck and spine. MRIs revealed numerous herniated discs, arthritis, and other structural deficiencies. While these scans didn’t do anything to help with my pain and debility, they did provide reasons for my suffering.
Three or four months ago, I started having severe pain in my lower back. An MRI two weeks ago — which I had to pay for myself since my insurance company refused to approve the test — revealed that I have disc problems in my lower back too, along with a Tarlov cyst in the sacrum area of my back. From neck to tailbone, my spine is a mess. And it is likely that my disc problems are congenital. Gotta love DNA. As things stand, I am unable to stand straight, or walk more than a few feet at a time, and I have lost bowel and bladder control. Just when I thought things were bad enough . . .
I found the surgeon to be personable, patient, and to the point — traits I admire in a doctor (besides being proficient and competent, of course). He told me that my problem was in the L4-L5 area of my spine. The damage is such that there is pressure on the nerves; the only fix is surgery. Not having surgery is not an option; that is, unless I want to be an incontinent invalid for the rest of my short life.
That said, this 2-3 hour surgery is not without risk. The surgery has a 90 percent success rate, with a 2-3 percent mortality rate. Factor in the fact that I have several comorbidities, my concern about the outcome is warranted.
I have had problems with my lower back my entire adult life. I was 20 when I saw a doctor for the first time about my back, and since then I have seen other doctors who pointed out the narrow disc space in L4 and L5. My mother and father both had back surgery to “fix” low back problems — Dad in 1969, at age 33, and Mom in 1979, at age 43. Both of my siblings have had back surgery, with a varying degree of positive outcomes. My sister is facing more surgery on her neck. Several years ago, we had a friend — who has since died from COVID — who was left crippled and unable to work from low back surgery. It’s hard not to think about these people and their experiences when considering my own back surgery.
Today was my scheduled appointment with my therapist. We talked extensively about my pain, suffering, and prospective surgery. She said, “Bruce you have two choices. Either you have the surgery or you don’t. I replied, “Actually, I have three choices.” I can choose to have the surgery, not have the surgery, or end my life. “Oh, Bruce, that’s not a choice.” Sure it is. It is a choice that I always have as long I am in my right mind and have access to the means of my demise.
There are moments when I want to end my life. I am flat worn out from the constant pain and suffering. (And just because you see me in public smiling or interacting with my family doesn’t mean my pain has suddenly gone away. It hasn’t, and when you see me, I am likely gritting my teeth and crying inwardly as I try to enjoy life and my family as much as possible.) Currently, my pain levels are top-of-the-chart awful. I can, at best, take two or three steps before I feel biting pain in my back, hips, buttocks, hamstrings, and calves; so much so that it doubles me over and takes my breath away.
My therapist asked why I didn’t kill myself, probing for the reason or reasons why I still find life worth living. This question led to a lengthy discussion. My answer was short and to the point; one word, to be exact: FAMILY! The only reason I choose to press forward is Polly, our six children, and sixteen grandchildren. I am ready to die. I am flat worn out from the pain, incontinence, and lack of sleep. I am tired of my wheelchair, my cane, and the struggle to do simple things like taking a shower and brushing my teeth. This sort of life is not worth living, if not for my family.
So why don’t I kill myself?
First, I know what suicide does to those left behind. My mother’s repeated suicide attempts and successful bullet to the heart left deep, lasting scars on my psyche. I would never, ever want to do this to my family.
Second, Polly doesn’t know how to operate the TV or remote control. She needs me. 🙂 (I thought this dark post needed a bit of humor.)
I said to my therapist, “If my family was gathered together at my house and an asteroid hit our home, killing everyone but me, I would have no reason to live.” While it is unlikely that this will happen, my point was this: Family is the reason I get up in the morning. While I love writing and sundry other things, they are not enough to keep me among the living — though $1,000,000 in blog donations might change my mind. 🙂
In recent weeks, I have seen a grandson graduate from kindergarten, and two granddaughters graduate with honors from high school. On Sunday, I am taking my 6-year-old grandson to his first baseball game in Toledo. Two of my granddaughters will be spending the weekend with us, and on Friday, we are going out to eat and then to a baseball game in Fort Wayne with our oldest son and his family. “But, Bruce, what about your pain and other health problems?” Oh, they haven’t gone anywhere. When I do things such as those mentioned above, I take extra pain medication, hoping that will get me through the night. Regardless, I know pain and suffering is the price of admission, and I am willing to pay the price. One thing I know: when I am with family or when they stop by for a visit, I feel better. There are scientific reasons for why this is so, but all I know is that when I see them, I am given strength to push through to another day.
I am not trying to guilt my children into seeing me more often. I know they are busy with life, jobs, and responsibilities. All I am saying is that when I DO see my children, their spouses, and my grandchildren, it makes a difference when it comes to my will to live. I am grateful that I am not a sick, elderly old man whose family never makes time to see him. I always want to see my grandchildren more often, but I am glad that I see them as often as I do. Even when it hurts me to touch or hug them, I still want to see them. When one of my young grandsons runs into the living room to hug me and inadvertently smacks me in the nuts, I still want their hugs and silly words. If you haven’t figured it out yet, pain is not as much of a problem as loneliness is. For me — and I ONLY speak for myself — family matters. I know that may not be the case for some readers. Family can cause pain, and people rightly distance themselves from their families, choosing loneliness or other social connections instead.
As things stand, I plan to have surgery on August 19. I hope when I awake from anesthesia that the first faces I see will be family. If so, it will be another day worth living.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Life is like a spinning plate. In normal circumstances, the plate as it spins is balanced and in control. Occasionally, the plate will become overloaded or unbalanced, but with time will balance itself out, and life will continue along with little to no spillage from the plate.
For people battling chronic illness and pain, their spinning plate is dissimilar to that of many people. Thanks to struggles with pervasive illnesses and unrelenting pain, their plates are already full, spinning wobbly, sending the contents of the plate every which way, and, sometimes, propelling the plate into the wall or floor. Daily, small things are added to the plate, causing further imbalance. The plate owner struggles to keep the plate spinning without crashing. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he doesn’t. And when he fails, he makes a mess for all to see, often leading to despair.
For me personally, it is the small things in life that often fuel my depression. I can handle big things, and big decisions. It is the small things that pile up on my plate, leading me to deep, dark — at times suicidal — times in my life; moments when I just want to die. Those are times when narcotic pain medications don’t work effectively or eating food of any type makes me sick or leads to vomiting. Last night, I spent the night into the morning hours in the bathroom — sixteen visits in all. Loose bowels and lack of sphincter muscle control . . . shitty bed, shitty clothes, shitty floors, shitty, shitty, shit everywhere. An accumulation of small things that left me in despair, not wanting to live another day. Fortunately, after dropping eight pounds in less than a day, things have returned to normal — whatever the hell “normal” means.
Every day, the small things change, but their effect on my life is the same, threatening to spin my life’s plate out of control. My therapist and I often talk about small things and how they affect my life. The goal, of course, is to lessen the number of small things in my life; to lessen the small things piling up on my plate. That’s easier said than done. When your bowels say shit, you shit. When your stomach says vomit, you vomit. When your legs and spine leave you writhing in pain, you writhe in pain. Contrary to what the positive mental attitude (PMA) prophets might say, some things are beyond our control. There’s little I can do to change how my body responds to food or nerve and joint pain. I can take medications or use mental techniques to redirect my pain, but there are times when nothing I do works. All I know to do is grit my teeth and hold on, hoping that my suffering will lessen. There’s no healing or deliverance on the horizon. All I can do is endure . . . until I no longer can do so.
I wish I had the luxury of sitting back and enjoying life, but when you have chronic health problems, you have no time to waste on the “good life.” I am at the place in life where I have tied a knot at the end of the rope, and I am hanging on for dear life. I love Polly; I love my children and their spouses; I love my grandchildren; I love my siblings. I live for them. I still have writing I want to do; and a book to finish. I still want to get my house in order, so that when the day comes that my plate comes crashing to the floor one last time, Polly won’t be left with a mess. As it stands now, if I died today, my demise would leave the love of my life in a difficult spot. She deserves better, and so do my children and grandchildren.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Last week, I shared with readers my interaction with a former church member named Terry. Terry was a teenager and young adult in two churches I pastored in the 1980s and 1990s. You can read my responses to Terry here and here.
Terry decided to stop messaging me, leaving me with one final comment. After striking a conciliatory tone, Terry took issue with my use of swear words — three out of 3,000 words — saying, “Not sure why you have [to] drop foul language in you[r] blogs sounds ignorant and childish.” Sigh, right? (Please read Why I Use the Word “Sigh.”) It is almost always Fundamentalist Christians who get upset over my use of non-approved words. I addressed this subject in a post titled Evangelical Swear Words. I don’t use many swear words in my writing. If my sparse use of them offends you, then, by all means, stop frequenting this site. I wouldn’t want to cause any further anal clenching for you. 🙂
Terry also had one more judgment to hurl my way:
Have you considered your health might be a judgment from God.
Terry knows I have serious health problems. I explained all of these issues in my second response to him. Yet, he decided to say that the “real” reason for my suffering is that God is judging me. Terry is not the first Evangelical to make such a claim. How could Terry possibly know that my health problems are his peculiar God’s judgment on my life for walking away from Christianity? Only God could know this for sure, right? Yet, Terry and other Evangelicals, seem to think they can divine God’s will, purpose, and plan for what I have experienced in life.
While my gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) diagnoses were determined in the past three years, everything else I am dealing with: fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, neuropathy, and degenerative spine disease, all first showed their faces while I was still an Evangelical pastor. My debilitating pain predates my atheism. I was an on-fire, sold-out follower of Jesus when I saw a doctor who diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. I was twenty-one years old the first time I had a problem with my spine. Polly, my partner of forty-six years, has many “fond” memories of the years I spent battling pneumonia and never-ending problems with bronchitis. She fondly remembers me spending a night in the ICU for a suspected heart attack, only to, thankfully, hear I had pleurisy. She remembers me almost dying from mononucleosis in the early 1990s; hearing the internist at the hospital tell her that if my immune system didn’t pick up there was nothing he could do for me. She almost was a widow at a young age.
Evangelicals who say my health problems are God’s judgment seem to be clueless as to how their words are “heard”; either that, or they don’t care. Do they really believe that telling me that their peculiar God is inflicting me with pain and suffering for no other reason than I lack sufficient evidence to believe in or worship him will lead me back to Jesus?
I have a three-year-old redheaded grandson named Silas. He’s a handful. Silas has no fear of anything. He must be watched at all times. Our living room is small, 16’x20′. We have three lamps in the room, along with an overhead light. I HATE the overhead light. My grandkids know not to turn the light on when I am in the room. Not Silas. He will run over to the wall switch, give me a look — you know, THAT look — turn on the light, and run off. No matter what I say or do, Silas keeps flipping the switch. Mischief is his middle name, some sort of karmic payback for my own childhood mischief. If my mom were alive, she would be smiling.
Imagine if I determined to teach Silas a lesson about the overhead light. I decided that the next time Silas turned the light on I would break his arm. Boy, that would get his attention, right? This is EXACTLY what Evangelicals are saying when they say that God has afflicted me to get my attention or to teach me a lesson. What, exactly, did I ever do to God to deserve such punishment? Or is God okay with Bruce, the Evangelical-preacher-turned-atheist, and it is Evangelicals who want to see me suffer? Sadly, many Evangelicals are sadists. Unbelievers have what they can’t have, so they rail against them, uttering threats of suffering, death, and Hell.
If I broke Silas’ arm because he kept turning on the light, I would deserve to be arrested and locked up for my crime. So it is for the Evangelical deity who inflicts suffering on finite beings. If such a deity exists, he is unworthy of our worship.
As far as my pain and suffering coming from God is concerned, I wrote:
Let me circle back around to this idea that God gave me fibromyalgia, gastroparesis, and degenerative spine disease because he is trying to get my attention; that every night I writhe in pain in bed, unable to sleep, my suffering is a message of love from the Christian deity.
What’s with God “trying” to do anything? Is he weak and powerless, unable to do what he wants? If God is not willing that any should perish, how is possible that Bruce Gerencser, a frail, broken-down biped, can thwart God’s will? Surely God can easily and effortlessly reach me at any time. “Nothing is too hard for God” and “with God all things are possible,” the Bible says. Yet, it seems that saving me is too hard for God and that it is impossible for the Big Kahuna to reach me.
If my suffering is God trying to get my attention, does this mean that if I repent and put my faith and trust in Jesus, my chronic pain and illnesses will immediately and magically disappear? Crickets are all I hear from Evangelicals. They know there is no connection between my health problems and God. None. Shit happens, and this is my shit to deal with.
As I told one Evangelical zealot several weeks ago after she said she was praying God would totally heal me, if God heals me I will immediately repent and become a Christian. I will shutter this blog and immediately return to church. I might even become a pastor again. What a miraculous story I would have to tell. The Defiant Atheist Bruce Gerencser Brought to Repentance and Faith By God Delivering Him From Pain and Suffering!! What a story, right?
And a “story” it shall remain. As much as I would like to go to bed tonight without pain and debility, I know that God is not going to heal me. This is my lot in life, and no amount of praying will change this fact. God isn’t judging me. I am paying the price of admission to the human race. I accept that this is just how things are.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
