Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, welcome to my
beautiful bipolar life.
I am your host, kelly Bauer.
Today I am going to take youback to the day that changed my
life forever April 10, 2020.
After receiving the apologyletter from my father in March,
I wasn't ready to speak to him.
(00:21):
I sent a text thanking him forsending the letter.
I told him I loved him butneeded time to process how his
actions would affect our futurerelationship.
For the first time in my life,I set an intentional boundary.
He responded that he understoodending it with I love you more,
(00:41):
something he had begun doing inrecent years.
After his 20-year career withthe US Navy ended, my father
became a nomad, most recentlyliving with his sister in North
Carolina.
I had not seen him since thenight of our fight.
Our text was our last and onlycommunication.
(01:02):
On April 10, I received the callthat would forever change my
life.
My father had a seizure.
He was taken to the hospitalunresponsive.
I couldn't breathe.
I was driving, so I pulled overto the side of the road and I
screamed.
I have no idea what I wasscreaming or why I was screaming
(01:25):
, but I just needed to geteverything out that was inside
of my brain and my heart in thatmoment.
I could never even imagine whatI was being told.
Next.
It was a brain tumormetastasized from the stage 4
cancer in my father's lungs.
My father was terminally illand he might not ever wake up.
(01:51):
He was scheduled for surgery onApril 12.
Surgery was scheduled in anattempt to remove the tumor that
was pushing on his brain.
There were absolutely noguarantees.
Covid had just begun rearing itsugly head.
Hospitals began a strictno-visitor policy.
(02:12):
Even if I went to him, Iwouldn't have been allowed in.
The first 48 hours were torture.
As a trauma victim, the firstthing I did was blame myself for
not calling him.
I didn't love myself enough atthat point to realize that I had
created a healthy boundary.
What happened to my father wasnot my karma.
(02:34):
It was not my punishment, itwas life.
This would be the first of manyhealing lessons I would learn
in the next three years.
As I waited for a call from thehospital post-surgery, I
couldn't help but think of thelast time I saw my father.
How I wished that we had talked, that it was very possible that
(02:58):
I would never talk to him again.
It felt like days, but Ifinally got the call that he was
out of surgery.
He had made it through but wasstill in a coma.
The doctors could not tell meif he would wake up, but they
were hopeful.
The only thing that I could dowas wait.
(03:20):
As someone with bipolar disorder, waiting isn't my strongest
attribute.
Okay, I suck at it.
I am impulsive and have animmense need to feel purposeful.
My love language is action.
I learned from a very young agethat words have very little
weight.
I needed something to do, so Idid the only thing that I knew.
(03:44):
I planned all the ways that Icould teach my dad to live
before he died.
I began to plan a bucket listtrip To take my dad to all the
places that he wanted to gobefore he kicked the bucket.
I had experience Two yearsearlier.
During my time as executivedirector of a non-profit animal
(04:06):
shelter, I took home a hospicefoster old man, fred.
He was in kidney failure andneeded a place to die.
On our way home from theshelter that day, we decided
Fred would not come home with meto die.
He would come home with me tolive Every single day until he
took his last breath.
(04:26):
We went on a bucket list tourdoing all the things a dog
should do in their lifetime.
That time with Fred changed mylife.
I was with him every day, evenwhen he took his last breath as
we laid by the river on a warmsummer day.
Little did I know that I wouldbe doing it again with my own
(04:49):
father.
While I waited for my dad towake up, I planned.
The travel industry was tankingand for someone like me it was
gold.
No cancellation fees meant Icould book flights and cancel
without penalty.
Prices were cheaper than theyhad ever been.
People were not bookingvacations.
(05:10):
While COVID was busy stoppinglives, I was busy planning ways
to live.
I took all the love, fear andgrief and I turned it into
action.
He can't die.
We have things to do.
I kept telling myself as Ispent endless hours on the
(05:31):
computer.
A distraction from reality,because the truth was, even if
my dad did wake up, he was goingto die.
One day turned into two, twointo four.
I began to lose hope that hewould never wake up.
But I never gave up, not on dayone, not even on the last day
(05:57):
that he lived.
So I focused on what I could doinstead of what I couldn't.
If there was one thing I knewhow to do.
It was live, and so I waited.