I have been thrice vaccinated, yet I contracted COVID in August 2022. I was quite sick, but I survived. Today, I tested positive for the virus again. I’m sicker than I was the first time — mainly respiratory problems.
I will likely not do any writing this week. If you are sitting on a guest post, now would be a good time to send it to me.
Thank you for your love and support.
“I hope you will feel better soon,” is an oft-heard line by chronic pain sufferers from well-meaning people. There’s this idea that our pain is temporary; that a cure awaits somewhere beyond the next doctor’s appointment. “A better day awaits,” people confidently say. How they could possibly know this remains unsaid, but such thinking finds its impetus in the idea that all suffering is temporary; that deliverance awaits just around the next corner.
For chronic pain sufferers, however, there are few better days outside of death on the horizon. We know there will never be a day when we “feel better,” outside of the marginal relief we receive from medications and treatments. In our minds, “it is what it is,” and no amount of good thoughts, wishful thinking, or prayer is going to change that fact.
Why, then, do the family members and friends of chronic pain sufferers ignore, marginalize, or reject this fact? If the pain sufferer can live with “it is what it is,” why can’t they? Certainly, family members and friends want the pain sufferer to feel better. I never doubt that such people are sincere or that they want what they perceive is best for me. Others have warped understandings of medical science or the specific medical conditions chronic pain sufferers face. They deify science, thinking that no medical problem is beyond treatment or cure. Doctors, of course, know better. They know that they can actually cure a handful of maladies. Most often, pain is managed and controlled. I know my doctors cannot cure me. My health problems are beyond simply taking medication or having surgery. Everything my doctors do is in the hope of giving me quality of life during what time I have left. I told my primary care doctor that I don’t expect him to cure me. I want him to do what he can to make my life better: less pain, and more mobility, or at the very least, no increased pain or debility That’s the contract we have with each other.
Many well-wishers think that if pain sufferers can, they should. If there is a treatment or procedure that “might” help, we should do it. Such people are convinced that a “miracle” awaits if the pain sufferer will just swallow this pill, eat these foods, take these supplements, have this surgery, or go through yet another treatment. They are unwilling to accept that “it is what it is.” When concerned family members and friends think (often wrongly) pain sufferers are giving in or giving up, they lecture and badger chronic pain sufferers, prodding us as a farmer with a cattle prod, to move forward through the chute of life. In their minds, giving in or giving up is always wrong, even if doing otherwise leads to more pain and suffering. I have watched numerous people — including my wife’s father — go through horrific pain and suffering, all because family members didn’t want their loved ones to give in or give up. And in the end? They died anyway.
I take a stoic approach to life. I have had a lot of trauma, tragedy, and suffering in my life. All suffering is personal. I know that what I have experienced is less than what some people have faced, but more than what others have gone through. When one of my toddler grandsons gets a boo-boo, his pain is every bit as real as Grandpa’s. The difference, of course, is that I have had almost sixty-six years of trauma, tragedy, and suffering. My lived experiences are far different from that of grandchildren or people decades younger than I am. All I know to do is to empathize with people when they are suffering, even when I know their pain is less than mine. I know that pain is a great teacher. I have had numerous steroid injections over the years. Polly always goes with me when I get juiced up. She usually remarks about my stoic mentality when the orthopedic doctor is sticking a long needle into my shoulder, hips, or hands. I always tell her that I have experienced horrible pain in my life; that the injections are uncomfortable, but nothing compared to my day-to-day pain or some of the painful procedures I’ve had in the past. I have developed mental processes that help me embrace the pain; the mental version of gritting one’s teeth and clenching one’s hands.
As I sit sideways in my recliner typing this post, my body hurts — literally — from head to toe. Herniated discs in my spine and neck, degenerative spine disease, osteoarthritis in numerous joints, muscle pain from fibromyalgia, and nerve pain in my legs and feet have left me in constant pain. I take narcotic pain medications, NSAIDs, and muscle relaxers to cope with my pain. They help, to be sure, but these drugs do not magically deliver me from pain. That has never been the goal. Pain medications and muscle relaxers, at their best, tamp down pain spikes. Certainly, I could take high enough levels of narcotics to make my pain go away, but in doing so I would sacrifice living a meaningful life. You see, “not dying” is not my grand goal. I don’t want to spend the last months and years of my life so drugged up that all I do is sleep, hoping that doing so will add a few days to my life. I choose quality over quantity, even if it means more pain than I would otherwise have.
I try to educate myself about the various diseases and debilities that I have. When I was diagnosed with gastroparesis (an incurable stomach disease) two years ago, the first thing I did was study up on the disease and its treatments. Knowledge really is power. With knowledge, I can know what to expect and how to best treat symptoms. I work in partnership with my doctors, knowing that the person who best knows my body is me. Unfortunately, family members and friends aren’t going to do this, so they often say ill-informed, ignorant, and, at times, stupid things to chronic pain sufferers. Typically, I ignore them. Other times, I ask, what treatment or drug do you suggest? Well, uh, I heard, I read on Facebook . . . You see, they don’t have any answers either. Why? In my case, there are no treatments, drugs, or surgeries that will lessen my pain and suffering in meaningful ways. And if there were, don’t you think I would investigate them and act accordingly? Or do some family members and friends think I want to be in pain; that I enjoy crippling pain, debility, vomiting, and diarrhea?
I have accepted that “it is what it is.” Unless there is a major medical breakthrough, I know that my life tomorrow and the day after will pretty much be, pain-wise, as it is today. I have embraced this fact. Are there treatments that I could have done that would offer short-term, temporary relief? Sure, but to what end? In 2021, I had a procedure done under anesthesia that used Botox to paralyze a muscle in my stomach. Did it work? Did I find relief? Sure, for three days, and then I was right back to being nauseous and vomiting. The same goes for epidurals and nerve blocks. They last for a short amount of time and are prohibitively expensive. I tried all of these procedures, but I decided, in the end, I didn’t want to deal with the false hopes and highs and lows that come from such treatments. A while back I had a night when I slept for nine hours, only waking up twice. I hopefully thought, “is this a sign of better days ahead”? Of course not. It was an anomaly. The next night I got two hours of sleep, and after that, I had on-and-off sleep for ten hours, as is typical for me.
I have accepted the fact that “better” days are not on my radar; that if I want to live, write, and enjoy what life I have, I must embrace my pain, do what I can, and try to ignore the well-meaning well-wishers. And when I can’t, I write a blog post. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
There are days, and then there are DAYS; memorable days; unforgettable days. Yesterday, and into the early morning hours of today, was one of those unforgettable days. I have had a lot of bad, really bad, awful days over the past three years. Thanks to gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and degenerative spine disease, every day is challenging. Most days are normal, but there are other days that stand above what has come to be my “new normal.”
About 7:00 pm last night, my battle with nausea kicked into overdrive. My goal is to avoid vomiting. I took some Zofran, hoping it would ratchet the nausea down to normal levels. An hour later, I realized that the medicine was not going to work (it usually works quickly). I finally felt that awful feeling, the call to bow before and worship the porcelain God. I slowly rose from my recliner, picked up my cane, put my right hand over my mouth, and made my way to the bathroom. I quickly knelt before the toilet and up came the contents of my stomach. I repeatedly vomited for what seemed like eternity. Once I determined that I was “safe,” I got up off the floor, washed my face and beard — which was covered with chunks of vomit — and returned to the living room. I still felt nauseous, so I took more Zofran, hoping that I wouldn’t have to throw up again. The medicine quickly kicked in. All praise be to Loki and modern medicine.
Surely, this is enough for one day, right? Right? I mean, right?
Polly came home from work at 2:30 am. She asked me if I wanted anything to eat. I told her nnnnnooooo! We watched a bit of TV and then headed for bed. The time was 3:45 am. Polly did her usual bathroom routine while I arranged my side of the bed in preparation for yet another titanic struggle with pain. I took my nightly medications, including Vicodin, Zanaflex, and Trazodone — all meant to reduce my pain so I could sleep. At 4:15 am, I told Polly “good night” and told her “I love you.” As is her custom, Polly gently patted my side and told me “I love you too. I hope you have a good night.” In a matter of minutes, Polly drifted off to sleep. I started watching a new series on Netflix, hoping to join Polly in dreamland one to three hours later.
Surprisingly, I fell quickly asleep, only to wake up an hour later. What could happen in an hour, right? Due to the excruciating pain in my back and neck, I typically sleep on my right side or on my stomach. This night, I started out on my side. Sometime during the hour I was asleep, my right leg fell off the bed (a common occurrence). When I woke up (the first time), I was alarmed to find that my leg and right arm were totally paralyzed (not numb, paralyzed — a first). It took me about ten minutes to get my leg back on the bed. I suspect the nerve (s) controlling my leg and arm had gotten pinched. Once I was properly situated on the bed, the paralysis eventually went away.
Surely, this is enough for one day, right? Right? I mean, right?
As I wrangled my body on the bed something didn’t feel right. Why do my back and legs feel wet? I stood up by the bed and surveyed the blanket and sheets. Water, maybe? Nope. Shit. Lots of shit. I had lost control of my bowels. Worse, in trying to get my body settled, I had rolled in the shit. The “wet” on my back and legs was shit. Think: vanilla ice cream cone rolled in chocolate. I said to myself, “are you fucking kidding me?”
Surely, this is enough for one day, right? Right? I mean, right?
As I made my way to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth and towel, I noticed I was really weak and lightheaded. Halfway to the bathroom, I passed out for a second, sending me careening into a white folding table in the living room. Fortunately, this broke my fall.
Surely, this is enough for one day, right? Right? I mean, right?
Nope. You see, when I used the table to break my fall, my glasses were on the top of the table, Of all the things I could have hit, I put my full weight on my glasses, bending them to such a degree that I can’t wear them.
I finally made it to the bathroom, got the towels I needed, and returned to the bedroom to clean up my mess. Amazingly, Polly slept through all of this. I didn’t feel I needed to wake her up, though I could have used some emotional support. “My shit, my problem,” I told myself.
After cleaning the bed, I sat on the side of the bed for 30 minutes or so, head in hands, wondering if I could go on. I finally decided I could, and snuggled back in bed next to Polly.
Surely, this is enough for one day, right? Right? I mean, right?
Finally, I can say yes.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Today, a woman named Sherryll left the following comment on the post titled The Tyranny and Oppression of the To-Do List. I have no idea whether Sheryll is a drive-by reader or a regular reader. I doubt she’s a regular reader for this reason: people who have been reading my writing for years know I have no use for unsolicited medical advice. Both on the comment guidelines and contact page, I ask people to not send me medical advice. I have an expert team of medical doctors caring for me. Beyond that, I have read scores of books, articles, and studies about the various diseases that afflict me. I have been tested, poked, scanned, and injected more times than I can count, including extensive work-ups at the University of Michigan and the Toledo Clinic. I’m confident that my diagnoses are accurate, as is my treatment plan.
Hi there Bruce! I’m so sorry you’re dealing with such pain!
I have been dealing with chronic pain for twenty-five years. My pain is widespread and diverse, from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my head. I have muscle pain, nerve pain, joint pain, eye pain, and bowel pain. This pain is not the normal aches and pains expected at age sixty-five. I have three types of days: less bad pain days, bad pain days, and screaming, off-the-charts pain days. I don’t have pain-free days.
Most of my pain is structural. I have osteoarthritis in virtually every joint in my body. Eighteen months ago, I started having severe pain in my upper back. This pain later spread to my neck. An MRI of my back revealed:
An MRI of my neck revealed similar damage.
These issues are structural in nature. No medication, supplement, or exercise is going to “cure” me. I recently saw a neurosurgeon at Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne. There’s nothing that can be surgically done for me, especially my back. The surgeon’s notes state: the patient will have to live with it.
I too have suffered through the years with similar issues but I fortunately found a doctor in Dallas Texas that helped me. He died three years ago, but his associates are carrying the torch and assisting others in their personal healing process!
Doctor Sherryll, who stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, says that she had “similar” problems as mine. I doubt it. She doesn’t know enough about me to make such a judgment, but that doesn’t matter in this Internet age. She sees that I have chronic pain; she had chronic pain; she was healed; I can be healed too.
The doctors in question operate the Environmental Clinic in Dallas (Richardson)Texas. The front page of their website lists their primary service offerings: allergy testing, immune support, nutrition, and detoxification. Does anyone smell “alternative medicine?”
Environmental Clinic’s website states:
Did you know that many common ailments may be traced to substances you are exposed to in your everyday environment? Thirty years ago, even medical science was not broadly aware of the extent the environment affected health. But, thanks to much research and the work of pioneering physicians, doctors now recognize such maladies as headaches, sinusitis, fatigue, joint aches, blood vessel abnormalities, asthma and chronic infections may be caused by environmental factors. The Environmental Health Center-Dallas is one of the oldest and most advanced centers in the world addressing health and disease as it relates to the environment. The center provides full-service medical care with a special emphasis on the impact of environmental factors on the human body.
According to Dr. William J. Rea, the surgeon who founded the Clinic in 1974, various exposures may cause sleep disturbance, learning disorders, blood vessel, colon and bladder inflammation, as well as a host of other inflammatory problems. The “environment” involves all of our surroundings, including everything we breathe, eat, or touch. It consists of thousands of substances we are exposed to each day, but often do not even know exist. They are substances like the air-pollens, molds, and animal danders in the air, machinery, carpets, cleaning supplies, perfume and smog produces chemical by-products.
For those unacquainted with the effects of the environment on our lives, this process can be compared to carrying a load of bricks. Just as we might fill our arms with bricks, our bodies are being filled with a variety of stressors, including biological, chemical, emotional and physical. As long as the amount of bricks, or stress factors, stay within a range our bodies can manage, everything is fine. But, when the load becomes more than our bodies can handle, down come the bricks. This collapse is represented physically as symptoms.
New patients begin by completing a detailed patient questionnaire and meeting with the physician. Lab tests are often recommended, as is sensitivity testing. In the latter, the patient is exposed to or injected with low levels of various substances which help to identify the cause of their sensitivity.
When the triggering agents are pinpointed, the physician determines an individualized program to help each patient achieve a state of maximum health. This program includes educating patients about their sensitivities, nutrition and environmental exposures as well as getting them actively involved in their treatment. Some patients also receive immunotherapy, a specialized type of vaccine treatment that may provide substantial relief.
At this point, I say sigh. (Why I Use the Word “Sigh.”)
It takes being pro-active though consisting of adopting a healthy diet and exercise within your present capacity.
Note the judgmental presumptions Sherryll makes about me. She assumes, without evidence, that I am not being proactive about my health; that I am not eating a “healthy” diet; that I am not exercising enough. How could Sherryll possibly know these things? In her mind, she thinks that I am not “healthy,” so these must be the reasons why. Would it matter to Sherryll if I told her that I AM proactive; that I eat a vegetable-filled well-balanced diet; that I do what I can physically within the limits of what my body will tolerate and allow? Of course not. Much like religious Fundamentalists, food fundies, homeopathic fundies, and alternative medicine fundies think they have THE truth; that all other viewpoints are lies bought and paid for by big pharma, rich doctors, and hospital conglomerates. These people want us to stay sick, keeping from hearing the true gospel of glorious health. This, of course, is bullshit.
When I look at prospective treatments, all that matters to me is the science. Not anecdotal stories; not sketchy studies; not medical professionals who have an axe to grind.
I realize you feel as if you’re knocking on heaven’s door(as an atheist, you still get the picture) but I am hoping with your drive—- albeit diminished via the illness—you could be up to the challenge! If interested look up Environmental Clinic in Dallas Texas! My best to you!
Sherryll wrongly thinks that she is providing me a “challenge”; that if I really want to get well, I need to accept her challenge. What, are we in grade school? I did look at Environmental Clinic’s website, including its extensive offerings of woo and pseudoscience. No thanks.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Two years ago, I had my diseased, inflamed gallbladder removed. I had put off surgery for years, but my primary care doctor insisted I have it removed, fearing it could rupture at any moment. After my gallbladder was removed, the surgeon told me that my gallbladder was so large that he had to enlarge the incision to get it out. Not long after, I started having serious stomach and bowel problems. After spending several days in the hospital — a nightmare experience — Dr. Matt Cooley, a local gastroenterologist, determined I had gastroparesis. I had several endoscopies and colonoscopies to make sure that some other problem was causing my symptoms. These tests confirmed Dr. Cooley’s diagnosis.
Since then, I have lost 110 pounds, dropping ten inches in my waist and three shirt sizes. My weight loss has leveled off thanks to me (and my drill sergeant wife) forcing myself to eat. I rarely have to drink Ensure these days. I am nauseous every day, without exception. I wake up with nausea and endure it throughout the day and evening hours. As you might imagine, it is hard to eat when you are nauseous. At times, I have bouts of vomiting. Thanks to taking Zofran, a drug that is often given to chemotherapy patients, I have been able to largely control the vomiting. Yet, there are days when Zofran doesn’t work and I end up vomiting. I retch when I vomit. This causes all sorts of other problems thanks to the herniated discs in my back and neck. Not a fun experience.
Since being diagnosed with gastroparesis, I have had to deal with several physiological changes. I am now anemic. Two years of B-12, iron, and vitamin C supplementation have helped, but blood tests show I am still anemic. The biggest change was to my vision. I got my first pair of glasses fifty years ago. I was decidedly nearsighted, with dramatically different vision in each eye. Over the past eighteen months, I have been dealing with blurred vision and aching eyes. I first saw my optometrist. After numerous eye exams, it became clear to me that she was incompetent. I then saw an ophthalmologist. He quickly determined that my body was having a hard time adjusting my glucose levels due to me being diabetic. This was affecting my vision. This doctor determined that I am now farsighted. I have, for the most part, stopped wearing glasses. I have an appointment with a new ophthalmologist later this month. I am hoping my eyes have settled down enough that I can get a stable prescription for glasses.
Outside of the non-stop nausea, the biggest problems I have are bowel related. I take fiber supplements and oral fiber medications twice a day, yet I have bouts of horrific constipation. My general rule is that if I haven’t had a bowel movement in 48 hours, I give myself an enema to get things moving. I will also have bouts of loose stools, including diarrhea. There’s no rhyme or reason for my bowel problems. I closely monitor what foods I eat and how they affect my bowels, but I have yet to find any food or foods that make a difference. Typically, my bowels are sluggish, with food often taking 3-7 days to traverse my intestinal tract. I track the speed of elimination by eating certain foods that I know will show up in my stools.
One positive effect of having gastroparesis and losing 110 pounds is that my blood glucose levels have dropped thirty percent to around 5.5. A side effect of this is that I have an increasing problem with low blood sugar levels. I have had several instances where my levels dropped to fifty, near diabetic coma range.
On occasion, I am asked what “caused” my gastroparesis. Did having my gallbladder removed play a part? My gastroenterologist believes that my gastroparesis is diabetes related. Determining the “cause” doesn’t matter that much to me. The treatment is the same, regardless of the cause.
I had a procedure done early on where the doctor using an endoscope (under anesthesia) injected the muscle at the bottom of the stomach with botulism, hoping that this would paralyze and relax the muscle. The procedure did not work. There are other procedures that are experimental in nature that can be tried, but after reading the literature on these procedures and their risks/complications, I decided against having them. I have reached the “live with it” phase of my battle with gastroparesis. I know there might come a time that I might have to have a feeding tube put in (if I choose to do so), but so far I have been able to manage my symptoms with medications, diet, and cognitive behavior therapy. There’s no cure for gastroparesis, so the only thing I can do is figure out how to live with the disease.
Recently, a friend of mine asked me for tips on how to deal with gastroparesis. His wife was recently diagnosed with the disease. What follows are my suggestions. This should not be construed as medical advice, though, quite frankly I know more about the disease than some of the doctors I have interacted with since my diagnosis. Gastroparesis is a rare disease. Many doctors are not educated on the disease, which I can easily spot when I have a consult with them. Nothing worse than a medical professional trying to bluff their way through an appointment.
What is gastroparesis?
Gastroparesis, also called delayed gastric emptying, is a disorder that slows or stops the movement of food from your stomach to your small intestine. Normally, after you swallow food, the muscles in the wall of your stomach grind the food into smaller pieces and push them into your small intestine to continue digestion. When you have gastroparesis, your stomach muscles work poorly or not at all, and your stomach takes too long to empty its contents. Gastroparesis can delay digestion, which can lead to various symptoms and complications.
How common is gastroparesis? According to NIH, gastroparesis is not common. Out of 100,000 people, about 10 men and about 40 women have gastroparesis.
It is essential to have competent medical care. Don’t be afraid to seek out a new doctor, one that has a working knowledge of gastroparesis. Doctors cannot be all things to all people, and their knowledge in one area doesn’t mean they are knowledgeable in another. At a bare minimum, you need to have a gastroenterologist on your medical team. Over time, you might find that your primary care doctor can handle your ongoing care and prescription refills. Don’t be afraid to change doctors, if necessary. Your care comes first.
There are various medications that are used in the treatment of gastroparesis. I tried several medications before landing on a regimen that works for me. Your mileage may vary. Untreated nausea will wreck your life, so don’t be afraid to ask for drugs such as Zofran, Phenergan, or Reglan. I have taken all three. Zofran works the best for me. You will likely have to use these drugs for the rest of your life.
Food. Before being diagnosed with gastroparesis, I rarely thought about the food I ate. Having gastroparesis forces me to think about food all the time. How will eating ________ affect me? I am nauseous every waking hour, so my goal is to make sure that I am getting sufficient nutrition. On days when I simply cannot bear to eat, I try to drink two Ensure drinks per day. This is not a long-term answer. Two shakes = 700 calories. This will help short-term, but the typical person needs about 1,200-1,600 calories per day. You might need to take supplements, but don’t do so without having your blood levels checked. Taking too much of a vitamin or mineral can cause you problems. Have your doctor do baseline tests to determine your blood levels. Once you have these numbers in hand, your doctor can then prescribe the proper supplements. I take B-12, iron, vitamin C (to increase Iron absorption), and potassium. I have my blood levels checked several times a year to make sure the supplements are doing their job.
Only eat what you can. You might have to push yourself on some days to eat, but don’t feel guilty if you can’t eat all of the scrumptious meal your spouse made especially for you. There are days when I can only eat 25-50 percent of the food Polly puts on my plate. There are days when I will take one or two bites and I am done. I encourage Polly not to take this personally. This is truly one of those “honey, it is me, not you.” I used to feel guilty over this, but my counselor has helped me to understand that this is not my fault. It still upsets me when we go out to a nice restaurant on a date, only for me to leave most of the food on my plate. Ugh, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The psychological price of not going out with Polly is much higher than the cost of food not eaten. Change what you can, and live with the rest. It’s not your fault.
Do whatever you need to do to maintain regular bowel habits. This, by far, is the most frustrating and challenging problem for me. If you are having problems with constipation, take fiber supplements. Don’t be afraid to up the dose until you have a normal “shit.” You might have to take fiber supplements for the rest of your life. I use psyllium husk powder twice a day. I hate drinking this stuff. Sometimes I gag, but I know if I don’t drink it, I will be constipated for sure. I also take a stool softener and laxative twice a day. All these things taken together give me tolerable bowel movements — most of the time. And when they don’t cause a bowel movement, I use enemas, either pre-filled Fleet bottles or a bulb syringe. During times of diarrhea, I stop taking fiber supplementation. Over time, you will learn how you read your body. You will become an expert in “shitting.”
Having gastroparesis will wear on you psychologically. It’s a disease you can’t get away from. It’s an ever-present reality in your life. It is not uncommon for gastroparesis sufferers to battle depression. It’s important that you seek out a competent secular counselor who has experience in helping people with serious health problems. I see a psychologist weekly. She is literally a lifesaver. Her first question every week is “how are you feeling?” She doesn’t let me get by with saying “I’m fine,” “super-dooper,” or “present and accounted for” — my typical responses. She presses me for all the gory details of my past week.
While there are gastroparesis groups on the Internet you might find helpful, be careful. As with all such groups, you will find a lot of woo and bad advice. I found this to be true with both gastroparesis and fibromyalgia groups. People mean well, but consider the source. Educate yourself about gastroparesis. Check out well-regarded medical sites. Read the scientific studies. Your goal is to know everything your doctor knows, and then some. Ask questions. Talk to fellow sufferers. None of this will “cure” you, but knowledge is power.
If I can ever be of help, please let me know. I am not a doctor, but I do know “stuff.” And as someone who has an intimate relationship with gastroparesis, I understand what you are going through. I want to help you in any way I can.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Humor: How You Know You Have Gastroparesis — Part One
Warning! This post talks about bodily functions, especially vomiting and shitting.
Two years ago, I was diagnosed with an incurable, debilitating stomach disease called gastroparesis. As a result, I have lost 110 pounds. Constant nausea, lack of appetite, fits of vomiting, erratic glucose levels (mine dropped by 30 percent, changing my vision from nearsighted to farsighted), and chronic bowel problems are a few of the common symptoms. (Many gastroparesis sufferers end up on feeding tubes.) Bowel movements are often life’s greatest adventures. Will today be the day I shit? Gawd, that was the mother of all turds. Diarrhea? Really? I was constipated yesterday. Bowel movements every day for a week, and then no bowel movements for days. Gastroparesis, also called stomach paralysis, slows the movement of food from your stomach through your intestinal tract. Sometimes, food takes 4-7 days to make it through my system. My problems are further complicated by the fact that I also had my gall bladder removed several years ago.
I am nauseated all the time. There’s not a day when I am not nauseated. The nausea is such that there are days when I don’t want to eat. Polly is a superb cook. She will whip up awesome meals, only to have me say “I can’t eat” or after eating a bite or two I say, “I’m done. I can’t eat anymore of this.” Typically, I apologize to Polly for my lack of appetite, for making her “feel” like she’s to blame for my lack of appetite. I remind her, “it’s me, not you.” We will go out to eat at an upscale restaurant, only to have me not be able to eat my meal. Or worse yet, I will eat a $20 to $50 meal only to rush to restroom and throw up. There’s nothing worse than throwing up in a “pristine” public restroom. I mean nothing . . .
Late last night, I became increasingly nauseated. I’ve become good at judging my nausea, whether I can just tough it out or whether I will end up face down in the toilet. As my nausea became increasingly “challenging,” I took 4 mg of Zofran — a drug given to chemotherapy patients to combat nausea. Zofran is a quick-acting sublingual drug. Typically, Zofran lessens my nausea in 5-10 minutes. Not this time. I decided to take 4 mg more of Zofran. “Surely, this will tamp down my ‘nausea’ to tolerable levels,” I thought to myself. Unfortunately, my nausea only got worse. Soon, I knew it was time to head to the bathroom.
As I haltingly shuffled to the bathroom, I put my left hand over my mouth, hoping to quell the gag reflex that was telling me to vomit right then and there. I made it to the bathroom without incident, knelt down, and violently vomited. And I mean “violently.” After ten or so minutes, I got up off the floor, washed out my mouth, and washed my face. I also had to wash my beard since it’s long enough that it drops into the toilet water when I am vomiting. Gastroparesis, a gift that keeps on giving.
I shuffled back to the living room, plopped down in the recliner, and started watching the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Conference Tournament again. (Ohio State lost. Damn you, God.) I had Bethany get me a glass of room temperature water, hoping to remove the taste of regurgitated food, stomach acid, and bile from my mouth and ward off the dehydration that was sure to come.
Typically, once I have vomited I do not vomit again. Unfortunately, on this Mother of Gastroparesis Day, I repeated my first bout of vomiting. Afterward, I checked my blood pressure. It was 180/100 and my pulse rate was a racing 120. People can and do have heart attacks or die from violent bouts of vomiting. I took 100 mg of Hydralazine to drive down my blood pressure. Worse, the muscles in my abdomen, chest, and back were screaming. The muscles in my abdomen were so stressed and inflamed they were protruding. I saw and felt numerous knots in my abdomen, the direct result of the toll the two bouts of vomiting took on my body. Today I feel as if Polly beat me with a baseball bat.
What I have shared above alone would be a top-of-the-charts day. This night, however, was only getting started. Earlier in the day, I had a bowel moment. Somewhat normal, not too much work. Yea! A couple of hours later, I had another bowel movement, and a while later yet another one. These shits were looser, but still within the normal range. (People with gastroparesis spend a lot of time thinking about eating and shitting.) In the early morning hours, things changed. I had two successive bowel movements that were watery, smelly, and oily. Not a good sign. Thinking things were somewhat under control, we headed for bed. It was 4:00 am. Polly had come home two hours early from work to care for me. I was weak and unstable. I rarely ask her to come home, but I needed her help.
Polly quickly fell asleep. Damn, I am so jealous. I would not fall asleep until 10:00 am, six hours later. Thanks to the herniated discs in my upper back, I have to lie on my right side, with my head propped up with four pillows. Typically, I put my iPad Pro on the nightstand on my side of the bed — 12 inches away. I put on my MPow Bluetooth headphones, turned on the Apple+ app, and started watching The Mosquito Coast series (which is nothing like the 1980s movie with the same name — one of my favorite movies). Two episodes in, I felt a sudden urge to use the bathroom. I stood up, and as I did, my bowels exploded. I shit all over the bed and floor. As I made my way to the bathroom — twenty feet away — I plopped shit on the carpet and on the bathroom floor. My backside and legs were covered with smelly oily shit. I sat down, said WHAT THE FUCK, and emptied my bowel. Or so I thought I was emptying my bowel, anyway. Once I was done, I reversed my steps, cleaning up the mess I made. Thirty minutes later, this happened all over again. Then, at 8:00 am, I would have the mother of all bowel explosions.
After my second mess and clean-up, I brought two bath towels to bed and put them on my side of the bed. Back to The Mosquito Coast. Around 8:00 am, I felt an overwhelming urge to shit. I mean right now, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I stood up and then it happened. I said NOOOOOO!, grabbed one of the bath towels and put it up to my ass, trying to stop the mess that was coming. I ended up with shit on the bed, floor, wall, curtain, nightstand, and iPad charging cable. along with shit on the dining room carpet, bathroom floor, and toilet. I later washed up my backside.
I finally fell asleep around 10:00 am, waking up at 4:00 pm. Polly came into the room and said she needed to strip the bed so everything could be washed, including our electric blanket. I am washing our bedding now. The oily shit permanently stained our padded bed cover. It now smells clean, but it sure looks like shit — literally. 🙂
I asked Polly to take a look at my backside to make sure I was shit-free. She started laughing. River Shit had cut a course down the back of my right leg. In between my toes and on the bottom on my feet were covered with shit too. Polly said, “Buddy boy, you need a bath.” I replied, “ya think?” We both laughed, and off to the bathroom I went to take a steamy hot, bubble-filled bath.
My life is back to “normal” today. Outside of a stained bed cover and lots of abdominal muscle pain, all is well. Or as I tell my counselor when she asks how I am doing, “I’m fine, wonderful, awesome, super, present and accounted for.” 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Occasionally, I write about my health problems and the struggles I have in my day-to-day life. Doing so, of course, will attract people who perversely revel in my pain and suffering or love telling me that my health problems are God’s judgment on my life, a precursor to the pain and suffering I will experience in the Lake of Fire after I die. Some commenters such as Tom/James/John/Joe go into graphic detail describing what God will one day do to the atheist named Bruce Gerencser. Yet, these same miscreants want me to join their Jesus Club and worship their God on Sundays. Even if God is real, and he’s not, I would never, ever worship such a deity. Such a God is a psychopath, as are some of his followers.
Most readers of this blog don’t have a problem with me writing about my health. I recognize that this site is not a blog about gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, or hemorrhoids. People read my writing because they are interested in what I have to say about religion and politics, especially Evangelicalism and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church movement. For the record, I have mentioned fibromyalgia thirty-three times, gastroparesis eleven times, and osteoarthritis twenty-one times in my writing. My health problems are an insignificant part of my writing, yet according to one Evangelical preacher I won’t mention by name, mentioning these things more than once is unnecessary (and evidently irritates his hemorrhoids). Of course, I could say the same thing about his writing. He’s mentioned God/Jesus thousands of times in his writing. Surely, mentioning the Big Kahuna and his sidekick Jesus once is enough. 🙂 Right?
There are several reasons I write about my health problems.
First, many readers want to know how I am doing.
Second, I am homebound. Due to declining motor functions and vision problems, I stopped driving in March 2020. I must now rely on Polly to chauffer me where I want to go. She works full-time, so there’s not a lot of time for me to be out and about. We go to the grocery and out to eat, but the rest of the time I am homebound. We do take short road trips occasionally, and when it gets warmer, I will wander out into our yard to do a bit of yard work, but most of my days are spent within the four walls of our two-story home.
Writing about my health problems and life in general allows me to connect with people outside of my claustrophobic world. The Internet allows me to maintain human connections with family, friends, and acquaintances, relationships that would have been impossible in a pre-Internet world.
Third, I want to be an advocate for people who suffer from the same diseases I do. I want them to know that I understand. Until you have actually had, say gastroparesis or Fibromyalgia, you can’t understand how these diseases affect humans. Much like reading the experiences of former Evangelicals, reading the stories of chronic pain and chronic illness sufferers resonates with people who are walking a similar path. When Polly, who has ulcerative colitis, had to have part of her colon and bladder removed three years ago and had a colostomy for eighteen months, she found it helpful to hear from readers of this blog who have had similar experiences. When Polly was diagnosed with A-fib, she appreciated talking to people who had A-fib too. There’s something comforting about knowing that you are not alone; that if others can make it to tomorrow, so can you. Don’t underestimate the power of a kind, thoughtful blog post, email, comment, or social media message. When you are suffering, sometimes, it’s the little things that often mean the most. Money helps too. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Also titled, “talking shit about shit.” 🙂
Two years ago, I was diagnosed with an incurable, debilitating stomach disease called gastroparesis. As a result, I have lost 110 pounds. Constant nausea, lack of appetite, fits of vomiting, erratic glucose levels (mine dropped by 30 percent, changing my vision from nearsighted to farsighted), and chronic bowel problems are a few of the common symptoms. (Many gastroparesis sufferers end up on feeding tubes.) Bowel movements are often life’s greatest adventures. Will today be the day I shit? Gawd, that was the mother of all turds. Diarrhea? Really? I was constipated yesterday. Bowel movements every day for a week, and then no bowel movements for days. Gastroparesis, also called stomach paralysis, slows the movement of food from your stomach through your intestinal tract. Sometimes, food takes 4-7 days to make it through my system. My problems are further complicated by the fact that I also had my gall bladder removed several years ago.
As I typically do, after watching Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption — two sports news programs — between the hours of 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm, I propped myself up on the couch so I could do some writing. Due to the herniated discs in my back and neck, I am no longer able to sit in my chair in the office and work, so the couch has become my new “office.”
I always hope that my bowels (or bladder) will leave me alone while I am writing. It’s no small feat for me to get situated on the couch to write, so I prefer not to move until I am done writing. Today would not be one of those days. All of a sudden, I had painful cramps, urgently calling me to the bathroom to make a delivery. I painfully got up from the couch, grabbed my cane, and shuffled off to the bathroom.
Before sitting down, I grabbed the latest issue of Orion Magazine that was sitting nearby. I always like to read something — anything, including the ingredients in the air spray — when I am taking care of business. My cramps suggested that I was fixing to give a massive offering to the porcelain god. Surely, I thought, this won’t take too much work. Boy, was I wrong! This day’s bowel movement took a lot of pushing, straining, and swearing (keep in mind that I take soluble fiber and bowel medication twice a day), causing increased pain in my upper back. Have painful herniated discs in your back and you will quickly learn how often you use your back for the basic daily functions of life.
After five minutes or so and one short Orion story, the deed was done. I turned around to look at what took so much effort, only to find a golf ball-sized turd. With nary a thought, I said out loud to the turd: that was a lot of work for that! 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
In the spring of 1971, my dad took me to see a female doctor. I was having pain in my elbows, legs, and feet. The doctor gave me an exam, including checking me for a hernia. Asked to drop my pants so she could check my testicles, I briefly passed out when she touched my genitals. She was the first and only woman who would ever see/touch my genitals until I married my wife, Polly, at age twenty-one (I did not pass out then). 🙂 The doctor concluded my pain was nothing to worry about. I had “growing” pains.
The pain in my elbows became so bad that I missed part of my freshman baseball season. The pain later went away, but I view this experience as the genesis of my pain problems. The next year, I missed weeks of school because I had mumps and chickenpox. That summer, I was exposed to chemicals in a swimming hole frequented by my friends and me. Chemical barrels had been dumped in the water, exposing us to harmful substances. Several of my friends ended up in the hospital. I was fortunate. I had large blisters on my skin, much like the blisters fair-skinned people get from a bad sunburn. A year later, I started having a problem with painful, debilitating swelling in my big toes. A doctor in Sierra Vista diagnosed this as gout — elevated uric acid levels. I took Zyloprim for several years and the gout went away. A rheumatologist would later cast doubt on my gout diagnosis. His explanation? I don’t know.
By the time I was in my twenties, I was having widespread joint pain, especially in my feet, legs, and back. My primary care doctor at the time blamed my pain on arthritis and sports injuries. I played competitive baseball, basketball, and softball until my early thirties. I also played racquetball and tackle football (without pads/helmets). I have injured every joint in my body — or so it seems, anyway — numerous times. I would walk out the door in fine shape, telling Polly I was going to the Y to play basketball, only to return home crippled and beat up. Some of these injuries required medical attention, including drawing fluid off my knees. I stopped playing competitive sports after an orthopedic doctor told me my knees were so bad that I was going to end up in a wheelchair if I didn’t stop playing basketball.
Over time, my pain problems became more pervasive. In 1997, I was, after two years of doctoring, diagnosed with fibromyalgia (widespread fatigue, pain). In the early 2000s, I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis (pain in the spine, feet, neck, shoulders, hands, knees), and in 2020, after extensive testing, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis (nausea, vomiting). In 2021, after seeing a doctor for excruciating pain, a CT scan and MRI revealed four herniated discs in my upper back.
Today, pain is my ever-present “friend.” I accept that this is my lot in life. I have two choices in life, keep moving or roll over and die. I choose, at least for today, to take narcotic pain medications, potent muscle relaxers, and other drugs that help me to keep moving forward. The goal is an improvement of quality of life. There’s no miraculous healing forthcoming — Jesus, you had your chance and did absolutely nothing — so I choose to embrace life as it is. Sure, I wish I didn’t live with constant pain. Sure, I wish I could sleep through the night. Sure, I wish I didn’t have to use a wheelchair or walk with a cane. Sure, I wish I could play with my grandchildren and not feel like I’ve been assaulted in a dark alley by an MMA fighter. But wishing and hoping change nothing, so I choose to accept my life as it is. What more can any of us do?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Evangelicals often say that suffering makes us stronger. According to them, their God uses suffering to test, try, chastise, and even “save” people. (What a perverse God this deity is.) The goal of suffering, then, is to bring people into submission to God’s purpose and plan; to humble them before God; to make them stronger. Theology aside, does suffering really make us stronger?
I have an intimate relationship with suffering (an abusive spouse if there ever was one). There’s not a moment or day in my life that I don’t suffer from unrelenting pain, fatigue, muscle spasms, and, since my diagnosis with gastroparesis in 2020, nausea, lack of appetite, and vomiting. My body hurts from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet — literally. Yes, I take narcotic pain medications and powerful muscle relaxers, along with a drug for sleep. They “help,” but they don’t make the pain magically disappear. The best these drugs do is improve my quality of life. And some days, they don’t even do that. Some days demand I put a stick in my mouth, bite down, and hope, plead, and “pray” that the pain will recede.
Nights are the worst. It takes from 3-5 hours for me to fall asleep once I lie down. I read, watch TV on my iPad Pro, or get up and walk the well-worn path in the carpet of our home, begging and pleading for the pain to go away. On occasion, I will take a hot bath — and “hot” for me is straight hot water. During the night hours, my body pisses off the fluid that has collected in my legs during the day, requiring numerous trips to the bathroom or the use of a portable urinal. Eventually, I will fall asleep (though I typically sleep 2-3 hours at a time), only to wake up the next day and start the process all over again.
Now to the question: does suffering makes us stronger? For me, no. There’s nothing in my experiences with suffering that have made me “stronger.” I am a weak, frail man, prone to thoughts of suicide, knowing that the medical means to my end are but two or three pill bottles away. I hang on for my beautiful wife of forty-three years, my six wonderful children, and thirteen supercalifragilisticexpialidocious grandchildren. I hang on because I still feel I have important work to do through this blog. I hang on because there are still things I want to see and places I want to go. So . . . I endure. Has my suffering made me stronger? Absolutely not. I endure out of a raw, naked desire to live, to see my grandchildren go to college, graduate, and do great things in the world. I want to hold in my arms my first great-grandchild. And I want to see the Bengals win a Super Bowl, the Reds win another World Series, my book published (no I haven’t given up — yet), and Bethany marry Rascal Flatts. 🙂 I still have reasons to get up in the morning. And the day I don’t?
Early in the morning hours, in a weeping moment of despair, I texted Polly:
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you or worry you. I love you with all my heart. But, I’m tired. I’m in so much pain — head to toe. Mentally, I’m in Pilgrim’s slough of despondency with, seemingly, no way out. I feel very alone. I know you are right here, yet everyone seems so distant. I feel like I’m being sucked under by quicksand while those who love me stand by and say, “Dad/Bruce/Butch [my nickname, only used by my siblings, aunts and uncles] will figure a way out.” And when I don’t or can’t?
Unrelenting chronic pain and suffering bring depression and despair. How could it be otherwise? That’s why I have been seeing counselors for the past ten years. (I recently changed therapists. I am seeing a woman this time.) These counselors have literally saved my life. I wish things were different for me, but “wishing” changes nothing. I am a realist, a pragmatist. Life is what it is. All I know to do is to endure. The Bible says, “he that’s endureth to the end shall be saved.” And what “saves” us, in the end, is death, not Jesus. As a chronic pain sufferer, death is my savior. Until then, I hang on until my savior appears in the sky.
This post is not a cry for help, nor is it a request for unsolicited medical advice. This is just me talking out loud and being real with the readers of this blog. I am sure some of my Evangelical critics will seize on this post as an example of the hopelessness of atheism or some sort of character flaw in my life. All I can say to them is this: fuck off.
Other Posts on Suffering
Bruce, Your “Suffering” is Nothing Compared to Job’s
Quote of the Day: Theological Beliefs Force People to Endure Needless Suffering
Do Evangelical Beliefs Cause Suffering?
An Argument Against the Existence of God: The Suffering of Animals
Quote of the Day: The Kind of Suffering That is a Problem by Bart Ehrman
Quit Complaining, Your Suffering is Nothing Compared to What Jesus Faced
Bart Ehrman on God, the Bible, and the Problem of Suffering
How Fundamentalist Prohibitions Cause Needless Suffering and Pain
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
