Every time I mention my health in a blog post — as sure as the sun comes up in the morning — I will receive emails and social media comments from readers offering me unsolicited, unwanted medical advice. These people mean well, but their “advice” is not welcome or helpful. Their advice says I am not doing something right; it is my fault I am sick and in pain. If I would just follow their “advice,” I would no longer be sick, nor would I be in pain.
Often, the “advice” I receive comes from proponents of alternative treatments — unproven treatments purveyors promise really, really, really work (for a price). There seems to be an assumption by the people who send me unsolicited medical advice that I am ignorant; that I have not investigated other treatments for gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis.
Last Saturday, I published a post titled, Health Update: I’m F**ked. In this article, I mentioned the results from an MRI I had last week:
I had X-rays. Normal. CT scan. Normal. And now an MRI of my thoracic spine. NOT normal. I have:
Disc herniation (T7,T8)
Disc herniation (T6,T7)
Central spinal canal stenosis (T9/T10, T10/T11)
Foraminal stenosis (T5,T6)
Disc degeneration/spondylosis (T1/T2 through T10/T11)
Facet Arthropathy throughout the spine, particularly at T2/T3, T3/T4, T5/T6, and T7/T8 through the T12/L1 levels.
Hypertrophic arthropathy at T9/T10
I quickly received several emails and comments telling me that I need to try this or that diet or supplement. These people have no idea about what my diet is or what, if any, supplements I take. They assume that because I am sick and in pain, that I must not be doing what they suggest I do. One long-time reader sent me a link to a video and suggested I go on the KETO diet. I tersely replied that I was on the no-food diet (gastroparesis); that I have lost 120 pounds; that my A1c is 5.3. She means well, but her emails and comments are NOT helpful. The same can be said for emails from people saying that if I just became a vegan, all would be well.
Let me be clear: I think Reiki, chiropractic treatment (with a few exceptions), homeopathy, supplementation, essential oils, acupuncture, magnets, faith healers, etc., are unproven, unscientific modalities. The same goes for diets that advocate unbalanced, unhealthy eating. There’s nothing wrong with my diet. I eat lots of vegetables, seafood, and other “healthy foods. Yet, I am still sick. Why? My problems are not diet related. There’s no diet or supplement known to man that will “cure” the structural damage in my back. Go to a chiropractor? Are you fucking kidding me? Think about that for a moment: a chiropractor pushing on my herniated discs. What could go wrong? The only solution is to treat and manage my pain.
I am a proponent of science-based medicine (SBM). I have confidence that my doctors are providing me the best possible treatment. I keep myself informed about the latest treatments and studies for my various maladies. I suspect I am better educated on gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis than are any of the people who offer me unsolicited medical advice. I have friends I trust who will send me links to reports or studies they have read. I have no problem with them doing this. What irritates the hell out of me is the unsolicited medical advice that subtly suggests that I am at fault; that if I would just do _______, my decades-long illnesses and pain would magically go away.
If you want to help me, continue to read my writing, leave pithy comments, and support my work financially. Leave my medical care to my doctors and me. Trust me, we have it under control. I know the limitations of modern medicine. I know that no magic treatment that will “cure” me is lurking around the next corner. I expect my doctors to do what they can, but I have never expected them to be miracle workers. Sometimes, life sucks. I am a realist. I know that I will battle chronic illness and pain until I die. Friends, family, and blog readers, genuinely wish I weren’t in pain. They tell me that things will get better in time. “Surely, better days lie ahead for me.” They think I need encouragement or happy visions of a seal bouncing a beach ball on his nose. I don’t. Sure, there are things people can do to help me, but how about asking me what help I need instead of assuming I need ______________?
Let me kindly ask again that readers do NOT send me unsolicited medical advice. And that includes leaving comments on this site, making comments on social media, or sending me private Facebook/Twitter messages. If you truly love and respect me, PLEASE stop.
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.
If you are a sports fan, you have likely heard the late Jim Valvano’s speech at the 1993 Espy Awards. Valvano had terminal cancer. He died six weeks after giving his speech at the Espy’s. Valvano started The V Foundation for Cancer Research. Its motto is “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” The idea behind this motto is that life is always to be valued above death, that we must keep fighting until the very end, that we must never give in or give up. This sort of thinking is on prominent display on social media and in countless books; a sentiment I can’t embrace.
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, had this to say about the positive thinking culture that permeates our society:
In other words, it [positive thinking] requires deliberate self-deception, including a constant effort to repress or block out unpleasant possibilities and ‘negative’ thoughts. The truly self-confident, or those who have in some way made their peace with the world and their destiny within it, do not need to expend effort censoring or otherwise controlling their thoughts.
Speaking of having breast cancer, Ehrenreich wrote:
Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a “gift,” was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.
Read your local newspaper’s obituaries, and you will find references to the dead battling, fighting, and persevering to the end. We know differently. Most people die with a whimper; the life sucked out of them by the diseases that afflict the human race.
I am dying. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but I am nearing the end of my life. Well-wishers tell me to keep fighting. Preachers of positive thinking tell me that I need to think good thoughts. It seems that people want me to deny reality and construct a false narrative, one of rainbows, puppy dogs, and happiness. People mean well, but as I become sicker, I find their cheerful, syrupy words unhelpful. In fact, I often find their words irritating and depressing. I find myself thinking, “can’t you see me?” Perhaps they can’t bear the thought of me dying. They can’t imagine their world without me. And so, the mass delusion continues.
Even if I were a healthy sixty-four, I am still nearing the time when I join Toto over the rainbow. If I lived to be 70, my life is 91% over; if I live to 80, 80% of my life is in the rearview mirror. I am not, however, healthy, and I never will be. I see no magical treatment on the horizon, no drug that cures me of what ails me. All my doctors can do is treat my symptoms and try to reduce my pain. Yesterday, I saw my primary care doctor. I had an EKG, a chest X-ray, and blood work. I will likely have a CT scan soon.
Four months ago, I started having pain in my left side. Typically, when I have such pains, I think “fibromyalgia.” However, such pains typically ebb and flow. This excruciating pain has, instead, spread to the middle of my back and under my arm. I spend most of my waking hours on the couch, trying to lie just right to lessen the pain. Pain medications are not effective with this pain, so I endure.
As you may know, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis — an incurable disease — earlier this year. I have lost 115 pounds, have little appetite, and frequent bouts of vomiting. I take medications that “help” to some degree with the symptoms, but there’s no cure for gastroparesis, so this is my life.
And then there’s Uncle Arthur — osteoarthritis. The X-rays I had done yesterday showed more arthritis in the spine. I am beginning to wonder if it would be simpler to list the places where I DON’T have arthritis.
I write this post, not to solicit sympathy, but to make a point about why it is okay to give in when it is all you can do. A week or so ago, we went to Whole Foods in Toledo. As I haltingly walked in the door, I veered to the left, away from Polly to the motorized carts. Polly watched as I stood there for what seemed the longest time. She came over to me and asked, “what are you doing?” I replied, “I am thinking about using a cart.” You see, I have never used a motorized cart or my wheelchair in a store. Whether due to pride or some sort of warrior complex, I refuse to use a cart.
I know that the no-cart/no-wheelchair days are over. No amount of positive mental thinking will change the fact that my body is broken beyond repair. IF I want to go to the store with Polly, I must use a cart. The battle, then, is psychological, not physical. I must embrace life as it is. I must be willing to give in.
I choose to embrace my life as it is, not how I might want it to be or how others want it to be. I choose to be a realist and a pragmatist. Bruce, this post is so damn depressing. Yep, and so is life. All I know to do is accept what comes my way. Unlike Jim Valvano, I have come to see that it is okay to give in; that I am not weak or a failure if I do so. In the end, Valvano and I will end up in the same place.
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.
My vision is increasingly blurred. Short distances, long distances, it matters not. I stopped wearing my glasses months ago. I’ve been to the eye doctor twice in the past month. She’s been my doctor for years. Yet, she doesn’t understand my health problems. This is the doctor who showed how clueless she was when she told me that the “cure” for fibromyalgia is removing my amalgam (mercury) fillings. Her source? Her aunt, who had fibromyalgia, was miraculously cured after having her amalgam fillings replaced with resin fillings.
On my first visit last month, I told her that I was recently diagnosed with gastroparesis — an incurable disease. She had the same level of understanding about this disease as she did fibromyalgia. No big deal. She not a medical doctor, a neurologist, or a gastroenterologist. It would be nice if she educated herself on gastroparesis and fibromyalgia, but she’s busy, and these diseases aren’t health problems she typically deals with. However, when attempting to explain why I’m having blurry vision and my prescription has dramatically changed, she suggested that these things could be caused by, you guessed it, the gastroparesis and fibromyalgia she knows nothing about.
What astounded me most was when she told me that she hoped I got better soon. I am used to such well-wishing by non-medical professionals. People feel the need to say “something,” so they send good thoughts my way or tell me they hope I will be better soon. However, when I’m paying doctors good money to provide me competent, educated care, I expect honesty, not meaningless well-wishing.
I’m sick, I’m tired, and I’m tired of being sick and tired.
I love Polly.
I love my six children and their spouses.
I love my thirteen grandchildren.
I love my friends.
I love watching the birds at our feeders.
I love watching wildlife stop by at night, eating whatever food scraps we have put out for them.
I love watching the feral cats frequent our yard, eating the food we put in the “cat” house for them.
I love writing for this blog.
I’ve even grown to love some of you.
Yet, no matter how much I love others and want to live another day for their sake, I’m increasingly tired. There’s no hope of better days — just better bad days. A good day is one when I don’t throw up.
Every day, and I mean EVERY day, is a struggle. The pain, nausea, and debility, never go away. There’s no “better” tomorrow for me. No miraculous healing forthcoming. I’m a pragmatist, a realist. I see things as they are, not as I wish them to be. Maybe I’ll live a year or two or even ten years. Maybe not. Maybe I will die of “natural” causes or maybe I will die by my own hand. Or maybe, I will trip over the damn cat and break my neck on the way to bathroom.
Love is what sustains me. Today, that is enough.
But, I’m tired . . .
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.
Several years ago, I saw my primary care doctor for a two-month check-up. I have been seeing the same doctor for twenty-five. We’ve become friends, and my appointments are often just as much catching up as they are treating me. My doctor is an Evangelical Christian. While I am sure he has noticed that I don’t talk about God/Jesus/Church anymore, we have never had any sort of discussion about my current beliefs and way of life. We are Facebook friends, so he’s read that I self-describe as an atheist.
For this visit: scripts were written/called in, CT scan scheduled, blood tests ordered, bitching about how bad the Browns/Bengals are, time to go home. The nurse — also an Evangelical — came into the room with several reams of paper (or so it seems) detailing everything we talked about during my visit. My doctor said to his nurse, Bruce, is a retired pastor. Before I could say a word, the nurse said, Retired pastor? How does THAT happen? Again, before I could say anything, my doctor said, He’s a retired pastor. (This nurse was a fill-in. I have not seen her since.)
I outwardly smiled, and much like Trump changing the discussion from “pussy-grabbing” to Bill Clinton’s dalliances, I said, how many games do you think the Browns will win? My doctor shook his head and laughed, knowing that his Browns suck (and my Bengals weren’t much better).
For whatever reason, when it comes to my medical treatment, I wall myself off from my atheist and humanist beliefs. I don’t disown them, I just don’t talk about them. I do, from time to time, act like a devout, proselytizing Jehovah’s Witness, leaving copies of the Freedom From Religion Foundation or Americans United For Separation of Church and State newsletters in the waiting room. Even with this low-key act of godlessness, I make sure my name and address are blacked out before placing the newsletters among waiting room reading materials.
What did the nurse mean when she said, Retired Pastor? how does THAT happen? Evangelical thinking on this subject goes something like this:
God calls men to be pastors.
The work of the ministry is far above any other job. In fact, it is not a job, it’s a calling.
This calling is irrevocable. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)
Pastors should die in the pulpit while preaching the gospel. Going to Heaven with my boots on, old-time preachers used to say.
Thus, being a retired pastor does not compute. God saved and called me, so I should still be preaching. But wait a minute. I am no longer a Christian. I don’t believe in the existence of the God I at one time worshiped and served. My salvation and calling were the results of social conditioning, the consequence of spending fifty years in the Evangelical church. At age five I told my mother that I wanted to be a preacher someday. At age fifteen, I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Two weeks later, I went before the church and told them I believed God was calling me to be a preacher. The congregation praised God for his selection of the redheaded Gerencser boy, and a week later I preached my first sermon. Thirty-three years later I preached my last sermon.
Someday, my obituary will be published in the Bryan Times and Defiance Crescent-News. On that day, my doctor will know the “truth” about my life and loss of faith. Until then, I am content to talk about football, baseball, or family, leaving my godlessness for another day. While I don’t think the fact of my atheism would affect my medical care, I prefer not to complicate my professional relationship and friendship with my doctor. If I Iive longer than expected — which is increasingly doubtful — and my doctor retires before I die, perhaps then we will talk about my journey from Evangelicalism to atheism. Or maybe he’ll stumble upon my blog or read one of the articles I have written for other blogs. I don’t fear him knowing. I just know there’s not enough time in a fifteen-minute office visit for me to explain why I am no longer a Christian.
Do you have certain people you haven’t shared your deconversion with? Why do you keep this to yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
It is a warm summer day in Manistee, Michigan. A man and his wife of thirty-five years get out of their black Ford Fusion to view Lake Michigan. They love the water, and if their life’s journey had taken them on another path, perhaps they would live in a cottage on the shore of one of the Great Lakes or in a small fishing village on the Atlantic coast.
But as fate would have it, Ohio has been their home for most of their marriage. No matter where they moved, be it Texas, Michigan, or Arizona, they always came back, like the proverbial bad penny, to Ohio.
For the past six years they have lived in rural northwest Ohio, in a small community with one stoplight, two bars, two churches, a grain elevator, gas station and 345 people. They live in a town where nothing happens, and the safety and stillness that “nothing” affords is fine by them.
They have made their peace with Ohio. After all, it is where their children and grandchildren live. This is home, and it is here that they will die some moment beyond their next breath.
But from time to time, the desire to dip their feet in a vast expanse of water, to hear the waves crashing on a shore and to walk barefooted on the beach calls out to them, and off they go.
They can no longer travel great distances; four to six hours away is the limit. The man’s body is used up and broken, most days he needs a cane and some days a wheelchair to get from point to point. Long trips in the car extract a painful price from his body, a toll that is paid weeks after they have returned home.
But today, the water calls, and on a warm July day they travel to South Haven, Michigan and then up the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to Manistee. Their travels will later take them to Sault Ste Marie before they return home to Ohio.
Few people are at the Manistee beach, so unlike South Haven, where the beaches and streets are filled with pushy, bustling, impatient tourists. The man and his wife have been to South Haven many times, but as they see the scarcity of people and the quietness of Manistee they say, I think we have found a new place to stay when we vacation.
The beach is owned by thousands of Plovers. It is an amazing sight to behold. The man and his wife are mesmerized by the birds, and the man, ever possessed of his camera, begins to take pictures.
Soon the serenity of the place is ruined by a stupid boy who sees the birds as worthy of his scorn and derision. The birds are covering the landscape of HIS beach, and he will have none of that. So he runs through the mass of birds screaming and waving his arms. This put the birds into flight, complaining loudly about the stupid boy.
The man and his wife turn their attention to the pier and lighthouse in the distance. She asks, Do you think you can make it? He replies, Sure. So off they go.
As they begin their slow, faltering stroll on the pier, they notice a sign that says, No Jumping or Swimming off the Pier. The man smiles quietly to himself as he sees four teenage boys doing what the sign prohibits. He remembers long ago when he, too, would have looked at the sign and proceeded to do exactly what the sign prohibited. He thinks, the folly, wonder, and joy of youth.
As the man and his wife pass the boys in the water, one of them calls out and says, How are you today, sir? The man thought, Sir? Am I really that old? He knows the answer to the question before he asks. For a few moments the man talks with the boys, then haltingly continues to walk down the pier with his wife.
Not far from the boys, the man, and his wife come upon a pair of ducks: a male, his female, and their brood of ten young ducklings. New life. The man wonders: How many of the ducklings will survive their youth? He knows the answer and this troubles him a bit. A reminder, that, for all its beauty, life is harsh, filled with pain, suffering, and death.
The man and his wife turn back to where the boys are swimming. The man thinks, as he looks at the shallow water with its rock-filled bottom, this is a dangerous place to be diving into the water.
But the boys are oblivious to the danger. The man’s mind races back to the days of his youth, remembering a time when he too lived without fear, enjoying the freedom of living in the moment.
One of the boys climbs back up on the pier and prepares to jump into the water. The man, a hundred feet or so from the boy, points his camera toward him. The man quickly adjusts the shutter speed, focuses the lens, and begins to shoot.
The man and his wife laugh as they watch the boy. Collectively, their minds wander back to a hot summer day in July when they joined their hands together and said, I do. Thirty-five years ago, they embraced one another and jumped off into the rock-strewn water of life, and survived.
Together they turn to walk back to the car. As they pass the boys, the man shouts, I am going to make you famous. The boys laugh and continue on with the horseplay that dominates their day.
The boys will never know that their innocence, their sign-defying plunges off a pier in Manistee, Michigan, warmed the heart of the man and his wife.
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.
Several years ago, I watched the movie Dark Places. Based on Gillian Flynn’s novel with the same name, Dark Places tells the story of a girl who survived the murder of her mother and sisters. After the killings, the murderer scrawled a message in blood on the bedroom wall. The message said: YOUR GOD IS NOT HERE
Your God is not here . . . five little words, yet they succinctly summarize one of the reasons many people walk away from Evangelical Christianity. Evangelicals believe that God hears and answers prayers, and is intimately involved with the day-to-day machinations of life. This God is all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful. For Evangelicals, they “see” God everywhere, even going so far as to say that God lives inside of them. He walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own, Evangelicals sing, rarely considering how often in their lives God is nowhere to be found.
Evangelicals are taught that God is everywhere, yet it seems — oh, so often — that the everywhere-God is AWOL. In 1 Kings 18, we find the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Elijah challenged the prophets to an Old Testament cook-off. Verses 20-24 state:
So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.
The prophets of Baal went first. As expected, their God was silent and no fire fell from Heaven. Then it was Elijah’s turn, and sure enough, God heard the prophet’s prayer and sent fire to burn up the sacrifice. Not only did God burn up Elijah’s ground chuck offering, but he also totally consumed the stone altar (imagine how hot the fire must have been to melt rock). Afterward, Elijah had the prophets of Baal restrained and taken to a nearby brook so he could murder them. All told, Elijah slaughtered 450 men.
I want to focus on one specific element of this story: Elijah’s mockery of the prophets of Baal. As these prophets called out to their God, Elijah began to mock them:
And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
The Living Bible puts it this way:
“You’ll have to shout louder than that,” he scoffed, “to catch the attention of your god! Perhaps he is talking to someone, or is out sitting on the toilet, or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”
Every time I read these words I think about the Evangelical God, a deity who is supposedly on the job 24/7. If this God is so intimately involved with his creation, why does it seem that he is nowhere to be found? This God is supposedly the Great Physician, yet Christians and atheists alike suffer and die. Where, oh where, is the God who heals? This God supposedly controls the weather, yet tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, avalanches, and mudslides maim and kill countless people, leaving those who survive without homes, food, and potable water. This God supposedly causes plants to grow, yet countless children will starve due to droughts and crop failures. This God is supposedly the God of Peace, yet hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children are maimed and slaughtered in wars and terrorist attacks. This God is supposedly the Giver of Life, yet everywhere people look they see death — both human and animal.
Perhaps it is the Evangelical God that is — to quote the Living Bible — “talking to someone, or is out sitting on the toilet, or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!” Taking a big-picture view of life leads many of us to conclude that either the Evangelical God is a heartless, indifferent son of a bitch or he doesn’t exist. For atheists such as myself, our honest, rational observations make one thing clear: there is no God. Perhaps — throwing a bone to deists and universalists — there is a hand-off God, but is he worthy of worship? This God created the universe, yet he chooses, in the midst of our suffering, to do nothing. What good is such a God as this? Warm “feelings” will not suffice when there is so much pain, suffering, and death.
Imagine how different the world would be if the Evangelical God fed the hungry, gave water to thirsty, healed the sick, brought an end to violence and war, and made sure everyone had a roof over their head, clothes on their back, shoes in their feet, and an iPhone (the Devil uses Android) in their pockets. Imagine if this God tore the pages of the book of Revelation from the Bible and said, my perfect, eternal kingdom is now!
Christians have been promising for centuries that someday their God will make all things new. Evangelicals warn sinners that the second coming of Christ is nigh, after which God will make a new Heaven and a new Earth. In Revelation 21:3-5 we find these words:
I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, “Look, the home of God is now among men, and he will live with them and they will be his people; yes, God himself will be among them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. All of that has gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new!”
Yet, despite the promises of better days ahead, the world remains just as it always has been, an admixture of love, joy, kindness, hatred, heartache, and loss. I ask, where is God?
I think the murderer was right when he scrawled on the bedroom wall, YOUR GOD IS NOT HERE. Surely, the cold reality and honesty of atheism is preferred to begging and pleading with a God who never answers. I spend each and every day of my life battling chronic pain and illness. Gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis dominate every waking moment. My health problems started fifteen years before I walked away from Christianity. Countless prayers were uttered on my behalf. I pleaded with God, Help me, Lord. Heal my broken body. Take away my pain. God uttered not a word, nor did he lift a finger to help. As a pastor, I prayed for numerous dying Christians. I asked the churches I pastored to pray for the sick and the dying. Yet, despite our earnest petitions, all those we prayed for died.
The absence of God from the human narrative of life is but one of the reasons I no longer believe in the existence of God. I think Jimmy Stewart summed up my view best with his prayer on the movie Shenandoah:
There is no God that is coming to deliver us from pain, suffering, and loss. We are on our own, so it is up to us to ease the suffering of humans and animals alike. Knowing that death always wins shouldn’t keep us from attempting to alleviate the misfortunes of others. We shouldn’t need promises of homes in Heaven to motivate us to help others.
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.
Yesterday, long-time reader and friend, Charles, complimented me on some of my recent writing, saying:
The several articles you put up today are very timely—-news wise—–and they are some of your best work.
I always appreciate such comments. I have never been a good judge of the quality of my work, so kind, thoughtful comments are always appreciated.
What I want to address in this short post is what else Charles said. Let me be clear, I am NOT taking Charles to task for saying this. I love and appreciate Charles, but there’s a teachable moment here that I think readers might find helpful.
Before complimenting me, Charles said:
You must be feeling better Bruce.
As countless readers, friends, and family members do, Charles sees a connection between “good” writing and how I feel physically. If my writing is perceived as “good,” then I must be feeling better. However, as my editor and my wife can tell you, some of my best work was written on days when I was quite sick, even suicidal.
I no longer have good days. I have no prospect of feeling better. The health problems I struggle with aren’t going away, and, quite frankly, they aren’t, on most days, very well managed. Writing, then, becomes a distraction of sorts, a way to take my mind off my pain and suffering. As I sit here typing this post, my body pulses with pain — and that’s after taking this or that medication. What writing does is direct my mind away from the spectacle of my life. Writing can be, for me anyway, a pain reliever of sorts. Think of it this way: your foot is throbbing with pain. You pick up a hammer and hit your hand. Problem solved. Your foot doesn’t seem so painful. This is exactly what writing does for me; a distraction that, for the time I am clicking away on my IBM keyboard, mentally reduces my pain.
Two weeks ago, I had a procedure done to temporarily lessen or stop the pain I have from gastroparesis. Unfortunately, it did not work. What treatments are left for me? Just do a Google search on “treatments for gastroparesis.” Doing so left me in despair. I have concluded that I must find a way to live with this, or not. Today, I chose to eat lunch, knowing that it would leave me feeling like I had been slugged in the abdomen. I don’t plan to give readers a running commentary on my difficulties. I just don’t have the wherewithal to do so anymore. Know that when you don’t see me post for a few days, it is for one reason alone: I can’t. And when I do post, it’s not because I “feel better,” but I do feel well enough to drag my sorry ass from the couch to the office, turn on Spotify, and write a few words that I hope readers will find helpful.
I know readers such as Charles genuinely want what’s best for me. They want me to feel better or find relief from my pain. I make no judgment on the well-meaning words of others. It beats being told by an Evangelical critic that he hopes I die and burn in Hell for eternity.
There are no more “feeling better” days ahead for me. I have resigned myself to that fact. Unless a revolutionary cure or miraculous healing comes my way, I know what lies ahead for me. And that’s okay. Not really, but hell, what am I going to do about it? Pray? Seek out a faith healer?
When you see another post by me, I hope you will say, “awesome, Bruce, is among the living!” And when the day comes when I can no longer write, please know, I will be forever grateful for your love and support.
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.
As an Evangelical Christian, I believed that if I sincerely prayed, God would take care of me, and he would make sure calamity didn’t show up at my doorstep. In those rare instances when it seemed that God wasn’t answering my prayer and I was facing disaster, I thought he was either testing me or chastising me for disobedience.
I was relatively healthy until the early 1990s. I played basketball in the winter and softball in the summer. In the fall, I cut wood, spending hours sawing felled trees into wood stove-sized pieces. I hunted in the fall/winter, walking for miles in the Appalachian foothills. I was, by every measure, a healthy but increasingly overweight man.
Today, I am a disabled old man, worn thin by chronic illness and debilitating pain. Since last August, I have had surgery, been to the emergency room twice, including last night, battled complications from the aforementioned surgery, had numerous tests, and have had way too many medications added to my daily pill-popping regimen. To say that I am tired of being sick and tired would be a gross understatement. I am back to seeing my counselor regularly, if for no other reason than I fear I am getting perilously close to saying, I don’t want to do this anymore.
I am still amazed by how quickly the circumstances of my life have changed. It seems that life is being sucked out of me ever so slowly. Gone are the days of strenuous physical activity. Now I am happy to take a short walk with Polly or tour our yard, looking at the flowers, bushes, and trees. Our home is littered with projects in various stages of completion. I will get to these projects soon, I tell myself. The pile of unread magazines on the end table continues to grow, even though I subscribe to few magazines these days. The same could be said for the unread books that line the shelves in the dining room. A week ago, I developed inflammation in the left side of my ribs and sternum. It is painful for me to even type. I have had this pain in the past, but coupled with abnormally high blood pressure readings (226/110) and a pounding headache, I thought I might be having a heart attack or stroke, thus my trip to the ER last night. Fortunately, after three hours of tests, the doctor concluded that yes, my blood pressure was high, but it was unlikely that I was having a heart attack or stroke.
Five years ago, I went over to my oldest son’s home to wire their new bedroom and bathroom. My coming over to help quickly turned into me taking extra doses of narcotic pain medication and sitting on a chair while I told others what to do. I was able to get the circuits where they needed to go, and I suppose I could make myself feel good over my son still needing my expertise, but I quietly wept inside as I thought about how much I had lost. Today? Attempts to do something physically strenuous are met with the screaming objections of my body. I sometimes push through the pain, knowing that I will pay a heavy price for ignoring my body’s vociferous objections. I shouldn’t do these things anymore, but the only thing worse than not doing them is feeling that my expertise and help are no longer needed. We all want to feel needed by those we love.
One of the most significant issues that dominate my every-other-week counseling sessions with Dr. Deal is my unwillingness to embrace life as it is. Just last week, we talked about the difficulty I was having taking baths and showers. Polly has to be nearby just in case I fall. Dr. Deal strongly suggested I purchase a shower seat and a tub support rail. I thought I am not going to do that. Sixteen years ago, I managed the Yuma office of Allegro Medical — a direct medical equipment company. We made deliveries of equipment to the homes of older people or nursing homes. I am not that old, right? Reason eventually prevailed. I ordered a seat and a rail from Amazon.
Even my family doctor has talked to me about the fine line between giving up and being smart about embracing reality. The notion of putting mind over matter is patently false, at least for me. There will be no more days of playing basketball or softball. There will be no more days of feeling the sweat run down my face and back as I cut wood on a crisp fall day. There will be no more days of trudging through the woods playing a game of hide-and-seek with a cottontail rabbit or a fox squirrel. No matter how much I want it to be different, I will never be able to read like I once did. While the voracious appetite for the printed page is still there, the ability to process it is long gone. This is my life, and there is not one damn thing I can do about it.
As a Christian, I believed that my physical afflictions were the result of God making me more like Jesus. I thought the way to Heaven was paved with pain and suffering. I can confidently say that God never answered one prayer when I cried out to him for physical relief or deliverance. I came to see that I was like the Apostle Paul who prayed for deliverance and God told him no. (2 Corinthians 12:6-9) God seems to always say no.
These days, I realize that the diseases that are ever-so-slowly taking life from me are the result of a combination of genetics, environment, and lifestyle choices, with a topping of “who the hell knows.” When I whine and complain about my lot in life and say “why me?” the universe laughs and says, “why not you?”
Bad things don’t always happen to other people. It is not always another family’s child who gets cancer or is killed in a car accident. It is not always someone else who has a brain tumor, goes through a divorce, or loses a job. It’s not always someone else who gets infected with COVID-19. It is not always someone else who loses everything in a fire, tornado, hurricane, or flood. The truth is that life is a big crapshoot: good luck, bad luck, at the right place, at the wrong place, good genetics, bad genetics, growing up on the right side of the tracks, growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, marrying the right person, marrying the wrong person. The list is endless.
As I peruse humankind’s ways, it is clear to me that very few people live to be old without facing trial and adversity. It is just how life is. If there really is a God, I might find some pleasure and satisfaction in saying DAMN you, God, but since there is no God, I am left to shout at a universe that yawns at my death-defying struggle. If the universe could speak, it surely would say, this movie always ends the same way. Death. Next.
It is futile to see life other than as it is. Wishing for days that are long since gone only results in depression and despair. We must embrace life as it is while we go kicking and screaming into the night. We have two choices in life: fight or roll over and die. Yes, life is unfair and bad things happen to good people. Shit happens, and it doesn’t always happen to someone else.
Let me end this post with a poem by Dylan Thomas, an early 20th-century poet who died at the age of 39:
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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.
I thought I would share with my readers a bit about living with fibromyalgia. In 1995, I started feeling fatigued and had a lot of muscle aches and pains — not from overwork or any of the daily physical activities I engaged in. I just felt tired all the time, and my body ached from head to toe. After months of feeling this away, I sought help from doctors; a two-year exercise in frustration and futility. One doctor suggested that it was all in my head; that I was still grieving for my mother who died in 1991. I blew up at this “esteemed” physician, shouting at him in no uncertain terms, IT’S NOT IN MY HEAD!
I was a thirty-five-year-old pastor who, up until that time, could physically do whatever he wanted to do; from playing sports to cutting wood to car repairs to construction work. Why was I fatigued? Why did I hurt all the time? Those are the questions I wanted answered.
In 1997, I saw a new doctor in Montpelier, Ohio. For the first time, I had a physician who actually listened to me. Twenty-five years later, this man is still my primary care doctor, and most all, my friend. Doc wasn’t a miracle worker. He found my symptoms troubling, yet tests came back normal. Of course, the reason for this is that fibromyalgia is a diagnosis of exclusion. Other diseases such as multiple sclerosis and polymyalgia must be ruled out before a doctor can determine whether a patient has fibromyalgia.
For several years, I sponsored and moderated a Christian email discussion list called CHARIS (the Greek word for grace). One of the list participants was a sickly man who was an invalid. After mentioning my health problems to list members, this man contacted me and suggested that I talk to my doctor about fibromyalgia. This “providential” conversation resulted in my doctor diagnosing me with fibromyalgia. Nothing changed for me, per se. Just because you have a diagnosis doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you are on the path to healing. What the diagnosis did say to me is that my pain was not in my head; that what I was dealing with was real.
There’s no cure for fibromyalgia. Symptoms vary widely, and most fibromyalgia sufferers are women. Twenty or so years ago, I drove to the Williams County Fairgrounds to attend a fibromyalgia support group. I felt, at the time, very alone. Few people seemed to understand what I was going through. Even my family was perplexed. What happened to Bruce, to Dad?
I arrived at the support group meeting thirty minutes early. Typical Bruce Gerencser behavior — always early. My children (and Polly) have oh-so-fond memories about my lectures on being on time; that you should always be early. As I sat in the fairground parking lot, I watched as people filed into the meeting. I quickly noticed that there were NO men, I mean none. Every group member was a woman. I thought, “these women will never understand what I am going through.” So, I decided to not attend the meeting and drove home. Years later, I started blogging, and my readers became my support group. I learned that woman with fibromyalgia did, in fact, have a lot to offer me, namely understanding.
No two fibromyalgia sufferers have the same symptoms. On a scale of 1-10, I am on the 10 side of the spectrum. Fibromyalgia has affected every aspect of my life, bit by bit robbing me of the man I once was. People in my life have a hard time accepting that fibromyalgia is an incurable disease; that all that can be done is to manage the symptoms. And yes, I have read the books that suggest otherwise. Just don’t . . . whatever book title you are going to suggest or website you think will really help me, trust me, I know about it. Twenty-five years of dealing with fibromyalgia have helped make me an expert on the disease. I have read numerous books, websites, and studies about fibromyalgia. I have had to deal with well-meaning fools who email me or send me stuff in the mail they believe will cure me. Even when I beg people NOT to do this, they do it anyway. “Just take this or that supplement, Bruce, and your fibromyalgia will go away!” “Have you tried __________?” The ill-informed judgment is that I have not, when, in fact, my primary care doctor and I have tried numerous medications, supplements, off-label drugs, treatments, etc. When I came into the office and said, “Doc, I read about this new fibromyalgia treatment, what do you think?” he always said, “let’s give it a try.” His goal today remains what it was twenty-five years ago: reduce my pain and improve the quality of my life.
Over the years, I developed other health problems, namely osteoarthritis that rages through my body like a wildfire, and peripheral neuropathy that causes numbness and pain in my legs and feet. The unholy trinity of fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and neuropathy have so afflicted me that I hurt from the crown of my head to the bottom of my feet. There are no pain-free days, just manageable pain days, and raging pain days that make me ponder killing myself (no this is not a cry for help). Throw in a degenerative lower back problem, a tear in my shoulder labrum, and bum knees thanks to abusing them playing basketball for twenty years, and I can safely say that I am a walking, talking train wreck of a man. I wish things were different for me, but all the wishing in the world won’t cure me. So, I accept and embrace what I call my “new normal.” And my “new normal” continues to change over time. I know Doc sees it. There are those times I have heard a brief sigh from Doc as I share a new problem. Not a sigh of exasperation or impatience, but one that says he knows that I am struggling for my life. I have told him numerous times, “I don’t expect you to fix what can’t be fixed.” “All I ask is that you do what you can for me.” And he has done just that over the past two and a half decades.
My treatment has settled into a rhythm of sorts: pain medications, potent muscle relaxers, sleep medications, light aerobic exercises and walking when I am able, and hot — and I mean hot — baths. The goal is decent sleep and the reduction of my pain to a tolerable level. Some days, it’s mission accomplished. Other days, not so much. And then there are those days when the meds don’t seem to work and muscle and joint pain batter me from head to toe for hours on end. The latter leave me in tears, wishing something, anything would make it stop. In these moments, I feel very alone, even though the love of my life is right next to me.
I am sixty-three-years-old. Thanks to the issues mentioned in this post and other health problems I won’t mention lest I sound like Granny Sue at church cataloging her afflictions, what I can do in life is limited. For years, my well-intentioned mother-in-law would ask Polly if I was “feeling better,” as if I had a temporary sickness that would soon disappear. She finally understands that I don’t have days when I “feel better.” Mom used to be a big proponent of “putting mind over matter.” That is until she had her own health problems; diseases that can’t be magically wished or prayed away.
Most days, I walk with a cane, but when we take trips or I am really fatigued, I have to use a wheelchair. I still refuse to use the motorized carts at the grocery. Irrational pride, to be sure, but I would rather slowly go through the store bent over the handle of a cart than ride around the store as an advertisement for infirmity. You see, people with fibromyalgia (and osteoarthritis) often look “normal.” I can’t tell you the times I’ve gotten glares when we pull into a handicapped parking space. I get out of the car and look “normal” so people think I am taking a parking space away from someone who could really use it.
I still struggle with self-worth as a result of fibromyalgia. In my mind, I am supposed to be the breadwinner instead of my wife. I am the one who is supposed to be taking care of everything. Having OCPD doesn’t help either. Fibromyalgia is a cruel oppressor. In my mind, I tell myself, “Bruce, you can do everything and anything you want to do!” Remember the line from the Waterboy? “You can do it!” And then I hear fibromyalgia and his sister osteoarthritis laughing and mocking me. “Sure, Bruce, go ahead and try.” And try I do, often working myself into bed for days on end from relentless pain and overwhelming fatigue. Fibromyalgia snickers and says, “See, Bruce, I told you! I am the boss in this story.”
One of the hardest things I have had to come to terms with is my physical and emotional limitations. When you spend most of your life as a workaholic, a man driven to perfection, it’s hard to admit that you are no longer in control of your storyline. I certainly haven’t mastered dealing with the realities of my life. I can, all too often, overwork, and this frustrates those who love me. I have never been good at finding balance in my life. I am more of an all-in kind of person, charging hell with a squirt gun, only to find out there’s no water in the gun. I want to think I have gotten better, but I suspect what’s really changed is that Polly is now willing to put her foot down and tell me no or suggest that I take off a day or two or four and rest. I also have friends such as Carolyn, my editor, who recognize my character flaws and try to keep me from self-destructive behavior. Carolyn can recount many times that I texted to tell her that I was going to go do this or that. She wisely encourages me to take it easy; to live for another day. And sometimes Carolyn sends see several smile emojis with a message that says, “you are going to do this anyway, aren’t you?” And sure enough, I do, and the next text she gets from me is one saying I won’t be doing any writing for a few days.
I haven’t worked a W-2 job since 2005. In recent years, I have done some web design and site management work for my sister’s trade school in Arizona. This provides me a bit of income, even though I feel guilty about taking her money. This blog, after expenses, also provides me a thousand or two dollars of income. And now that I am drawing social security, I feel as if I am contributing in some small way to our material well-being. That said, I can’t help but think when I see my wife of forty-two years walk out the door to go to work that I should be the one, pick in hand, heading for the coal mine.
This is the first comprehensive post I have written about my struggles with fibromyalgia. I hope you found it helpful, and it gave you a bit of knowledge and understanding about a disease that affects millions of people.
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.
Several years ago, I watched a sports documentary about a boxer who had brain damage from his last fight. No matter what doctors did, his condition continued to deteriorate. Finally, doctors told his wife that they had done all they could do. Both the boxer and his wife would have to accept that he was not going to get better. In fact, his health would likely get worse. The wife said, “I refuse to accept this. Surely, there is something else that can be done. A new drug, treatment, or therapy, surely there is something that can be done.”
While I understand the wife’s unwillingness to accept that her husband was never going to recover, her statement reflects a common misconception about life and the tragedies that come our way. Things don’t always get better. Sometimes, there’s nothing more that can be done. Sometimes, there’s not an answer or a cure.
I have been criticized, often behind my back, for the stoic attitude I have about my health. Since 1997, when I was first diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I’ve seen numerous doctors, had more blood tests than I can count, and have had repeated scans, procedures, and surgeries.
My orthopedic doctor told me my osteoarthritis is like numerous wildfires burning out of control. Put one fire out and others pop up. He gathered up my x-rays and MRI scans and we looked at them. He was quite blunt, telling me that I have arthritis in EVERY joint, and that some of the damage is severe. Knees, shoulders, feet, hands, and back, all have arthritis that is causing joint damage. The why is unknown. Some days, the pain from the arthritis is severe, some days it is tolerable. Added to this is the muscle pain I have from Fibromyalgia. Every day is a pain day, with some days worse than others. I haven’t had a pain-free day in twenty-five years.
We talked about options. He was quite frank with me, saying that because the arthritis is so pervasive that I was not a good candidate for surgery. Even with my knees and shoulders, scoping them could actually make things worse, resulting in more pain. I like this doctor because he doesn’t bullshit me. His advice? Live with it. Unless I want to have total joint replacements, surgeries that have a huge risk of complications for someone like me who has a compromised immune system, I must learn to live with the pain, debility, and the ever-so-slow loss of function. All that he and other doctors can do for me is help manage the pain and try to improve my quality of life.
And I am fine with this. As I told the doctor, sucks to be me, but it is what it is. Unlike the boxer’s wife, I know there is nothing more that can be done. All the whining, complaining, praying, wishing, and hoping won’t change the fact that I have a body that is failing. All I can do is make the most of what life I have left.
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.
