My beautiful bipolar life
What started as a cross country bucket list journey with my terminally ill and estranged father, evolved into a search and rescue effort. To find the little girl who got lost amongst generational trauma, domestic violence and societal expectations. I found the fearless wildflower who loved herself and was ready to change the world. In my father’s death, I discovered the life I was supposed to live, while evolving into the woman I am today. I hope this podcast is a safe place to land for those wanting to heal, grow and live an authentic life rooted in gratitude, kindness, limited f***s and yummy snacks.
My beautiful bipolar life
Facing Mortality: Love, Loss, and Life's Final Adventures
The phone call that shook my world on April 10, 2020, wasn't just any call – it was the one that told me my father had collapsed with a brain tumor, thrusted into a battle with terminal cancer. This episode isn't just a recount of the harrowing days following that call; it's a raw, intimate glimpse into a painful junction of my life where mortality, strained family ties, and my own mental health challenges with bipolar disorder collide.
Join me, Kelly Bauer, as I strip down the emotional layers of those 48 hours, unraveling the complex web where love, trauma, and the urgency of life intersect. You'll hear how, even as the world grappled with the onset of a pandemic, I found solace in crafting a bucket list of final adventures for my father, inspired by my time with a hospice foster dog, Fred. Uncover the intense journey of self-reflection, the quest for healing, and the unvarnished truth about what it means to truly live in the face of death.
Hello, welcome to my beautiful bipolar life. I am your host, kelly Bauer. Today I am going to take you back to the day that changed my life forever April 10, 2020. After receiving the apology letter from my father in March, I wasn't ready to speak to him. I sent a text thanking him for sending the letter. I told him I loved him but needed time to process how his actions would affect our future relationship. For the first time in my life, I set an intentional boundary. He responded that he understood ending it with I love you more, something he had begun doing in recent years. After his 20-year career with the US Navy ended, my father became a nomad, most recently living with his sister in North Carolina. I had not seen him since the night of our fight. Our text was our last and only communication.
Speaker 1:On April 10, I received the call that would forever change my life. My father had a seizure. He was taken to the hospital unresponsive. I couldn't breathe. I was driving, so I pulled over to the side of the road and I screamed. I have no idea what I was screaming or why I was screaming, but I just needed to get everything out that was inside of my brain and my heart in that moment. I could never even imagine what I was being told.
Speaker 1:Next. It was a brain tumor metastasized from the stage 4 cancer in my father's lungs. My father was terminally ill and he might not ever wake up. He was scheduled for surgery on April 12. Surgery was scheduled in an attempt to remove the tumor that was pushing on his brain. There were absolutely no guarantees.
Speaker 1:Covid had just begun rearing its ugly head. Hospitals began a strict no-visitor policy. Even if I went to him, I wouldn't have been allowed in. The first 48 hours were torture. As a trauma victim, the first thing I did was blame myself for not calling him. I didn't love myself enough at that point to realize that I had created a healthy boundary. What happened to my father was not my karma. It was not my punishment, it was life. This would be the first of many healing lessons I would learn in the next three years.
Speaker 1:As I waited for a call from the hospital post-surgery, I couldn't help but think of the last time I saw my father. How I wished that we had talked, that it was very possible that I would never talk to him again. It felt like days, but I finally got the call that he was out of surgery. He had made it through but was still in a coma. The doctors could not tell me if he would wake up, but they were hopeful. The only thing that I could do was wait.
Speaker 1:As someone with bipolar disorder, waiting isn't my strongest attribute. Okay, I suck at it. I am impulsive and have an immense need to feel purposeful. My love language is action. I learned from a very young age that words have very little weight. I needed something to do, so I did the only thing that I knew. I planned all the ways that I could teach my dad to live before he died. I began to plan a bucket list trip To take my dad to all the places that he wanted to go before he kicked the bucket. I had experience Two years earlier.
Speaker 1:During my time as executive director of a non-profit animal shelter, I took home a hospice foster old man, fred. He was in kidney failure and needed a place to die. On our way home from the shelter that day, we decided Fred would not come home with me to die. He would come home with me to live Every single day until he took his last breath. We went on a bucket list tour doing all the things a dog should do in their lifetime. That time with Fred changed my life. I was with him every day, even when he took his last breath as we laid by the river on a warm summer day. Little did I know that I would be doing it again with my own father.
Speaker 1:While I waited for my dad to wake up, I planned. The travel industry was tanking and for someone like me it was gold. No cancellation fees meant I could book flights and cancel without penalty. Prices were cheaper than they had ever been. People were not booking vacations. While COVID was busy stopping lives, I was busy planning ways to live. I took all the love, fear and grief and I turned it into action. He can't die. We have things to do. I kept telling myself as I spent endless hours on the computer. A distraction from reality, because the truth was, even if my dad did wake up, he was going to die. One day turned into two, two into four. I began to lose hope that he would never wake up. But I never gave up, not on day one, not even on the last day that he lived. So I focused on what I could do instead of what I couldn't. If there was one thing I knew how to do. It was live, and so I waited.