When Life Changes Overnight: A Story of Faith, Family, and Resilience with Brie Bauer

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0:53So go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed.

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2:19This is The Ed Myeret Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So today will be a little bit longer introduction than I normally do because I really believe today's show is one of the most unique ones I've ever done. And one you may remember for the rest of your life. And it's because of this remarkable woman that we're going to have a conversation with today. I just want to tell you all, you know, I made a decision a while ago as the show became more popular. Did I just want to have actors and entertainers on every single week that are very famous like some other shows do? Because it's easy to get them on once you have a larger show like we do.

2:55And as I did some of those interviews some of them were incredible, but some of them frankly are very general a lot of platitudes I don't think a lot of it applies to real people's lives and I made a conscious decision that Every week when I come into your car or your gym or your living room Wherever the show is I want it to change your life every week or at least have a chance to And so i'm very scrutinizing when I have guests on because I want them to make a difference in your life And that doesn't mean I don't have famous people on I do but I want to have the right people on that can change your life and I've just made that choice with the show and today this remarkable woman fits that description perfectly so my guest name today is Brie Bauer and most of you have never heard of Brie before she doesn't have a million people on social media she doesn't even have thousands of people on social media but what she has is a heart and a spirit that and an infectious relentless pursuit of life that I don't think most people have and I think today's going to give you perspective on your own life so Brie went through a pretty harrowing experience after she gave birth to her third child, Beau, a lot earlier than she expected.

3:54Beau came very, very early, 27 weeks into her pregnancy. Little Beau was born weighing just two pounds, eight ounces, and was immediately put in the NICU unit. And meanwhile, during that time, Bree's health took a traumatic turn for the worse. She suffered tremendous blood loss during labor and birth and fluid filled her lungs. She ended up with multi-organ failure. I want you to imagine this. You're delivering your third baby way earlier than you think. Organ failure. She ended up going to a medically induced coma and she was diagnosed with a chance. Prognosis was 10 % chance of living. And she ended up with streptococcal type A, toxic shock syndrome, and a thing called intravascular coagulation, which I know a little bit about because I had a sister suffer with that.

4:46And so she had to have an emergency hysterectomy, later surgery on her colon. And unfortunately, the medications that were crucial for her survival led to a reduction in blood flow to her extremities, to her limbs. And that caused those limbs to be amputated. When she finally awoke from this experience, life was very different. And I want to discuss this journey because this is a woman in the middle of this journey. As I interview her today, she is doing dialysis as we're talking today. This is going to give you perspective. It's going to change your life. And it's why I do the show. So Brie Bauer, welcome to the show.

5:21And thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much, Ed, for having me. You are amazing. Well, let's go to the obvious question. What did I mess up there? What took place and walk us through the birth and also just the you wake up and discover. I assume you got a conscious choice to have your limbs amputated or did you wake up and this was done while you were in a coma? That was one thing my family made sure of is they wanted to hear from me about saying yes to amputation. So they did everything until I kind of came to. But I think you really did a wonderful job especially pronouncing all of the uh issues that were going on i do want to point out that february 17th is how this all happened and i went in actually to an urgent care with my primary care first uh for my shoulders just like felt kind of sore like as like when you have the flu or something okay and when you're pregnant you I was like, oh, I probably should check this out.

6:31So I went to my primary care, but there was like seven or eight people in front of me. And so I was like, I don't want to wait. And then I decided to go to my OB urgent care. And luckily when we got there, they're able to put those ultrasounds on your stomach to see contractions and how the baby is doing. and my mom and i look over at the monitor and it's just like he be like just like constant hills going up and down we're like are those contractions um and i was just having back-to-back contractions i had no idea that's when beau pretty much saved both of our lives uh not really knowing at the time but he was in distress and the doctor's like we got to do emergency c-section so i get let's do it let's go um and then as uh they put the mask on me for the emergency c-section that's the last thing i remember unfortunately when they opened me up you know the baby was delivered he looked great little tiny guy but uh they couldn't stop the bleeding and I had a placental abruption and they they still needed to go to my family and discuss the next steps which was to do a hysterectomy when all this went down like blood pressure's going down they're putting me on pressors being in DIC at the time as well which means your blood is clotting when it shouldn't and it is not clotting where it should uh so it's kind of backwards but during that time the doctor came to my family and said you know we have to do this mastectomy she will uh probably you know pass during surgery uh but she most definitely will die if we don't do it uh and my poor husband you know he's having these thoughts of what to do and at the same time you know we're handing this certificate to name the baby um having both like losing his wife and then having a baby at the same time we ended up choosing Bo that was the only name we really agreed upon at that time uh and so he went along and uh wrote that down but they of course said yes the surgery for me and they did this direct to me when they were in there they found that uh my colon had blackened too because this whole process of trying to save my life the focus was to provide blood flow to the major organs yeah so like just like the you think of like a triangle almost of your chest and and below but that that colon just wasn't getting the blood flow and so they had to do a third surgery to take that colon out and do a ostomy but it's just crazy what they found so three surgeries within 24 to 48 hours then it was like this 10-day span where they put me in the medically induced coma and uh slowly my family was watching my fingers start to blue from blue and black and the doctors were saying at first she'll probably lose her fingers and her toes and then it seemed like you know with hours they were like she'll probably use her hands and her feet but they just kept seeing the the blue creep up Even on the back of my head, it became necrotic.

10:20I think there's other terms to use for this kind of issue, but yet my limbs, they just weren't getting that blood flow. So when I woke up, my family and the team of doctors did a wonderful job explaining to me kind of what happened. and that they took off the bandages to show what my limbs looked like, which I greatly appreciated, especially as a nurse, to view what and why they needed to amputate. Marie, can I ask you? I just want to interject. I just want to ask you something. By the way, I'm short of breath a little bit just picturing this. But I want to ask you, just because everyone listening to this is going to go through something in their life, probably nowhere near like this, where they're almost in shock that something's happening to them.

11:18Whatever it is, it's someone walks in and says, I'm leaving you in a marriage. Or it could be a number of things. Or you're fired. And that is nowhere near like what you, but you understand. I'm curious, you're about to have this beautiful experience giving birth to your third child. All of these things happen. and you wake up and now you're looking at your own purplish blue limb. What happened in, do you remember what happened in your mind? Was it shock? Was it sadness? Or was it like, let's just make a decision here and move on? Did you remember processing something then? I do. I remember the exact moment that they were undoing all these bandages.

11:56And again, this is probably like two or three days after I truly came to. and that's you know still I was on a lot of medication uh but I um the room you know uh a lot of people came into that room that day to see what I would do so first there's just a lot of eyes on me which I'm not one to enjoy that but uh either way it's a learning experience and you know again as a nurse and I worked for that same hospital too and um I can understand when people need to come in to get uh educated but i first saw my hand and it looked like a mummified hand and it was just curled up you can kind of you can still see my fingernails and then of my arm uh you can tell like it you know got blue and black and then they took the other arm dressing off and then my legs the legs were the craziest because i was 5 10 or nine and a half but uh i i had pretty long legs and to see all of that gone um but honestly i was like okay let's get them off really i want to start rehab yeah wow there's there's no way nothing could be done you know you can't save a hand that looked like that um and if you keep your limbs like that, it'll get infected, you know, and then you go subject in.

13:35So I was like, let's do this now. So, Hey guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you can get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love Growth Day.

14:03Write this down for a second, growthday.com forward slash ed. My friend Brendon Brouchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability, journaling, courses, thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays where I contribute as do a whole bunch of other influence. It's like the Avengers of influencers and business minds in there. It's the Netflix for high achievers or people that want to be high achievers. So go check it out. My friend Brennan's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved.

14:35Go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed.

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15:45We'll see you next time. Can I tell you one thing about you that's remarkable? You don't even know this about yourself, but I'm just going to point a couple of things out to you and everybody listening. The first thing that you said and the way that you frame this and that you look at it is, um, both saved our lives. It's one of the first things you said. And to me, that's a beautiful perspective and it's true. And it also goes to, I think one of the keys, I'm trying to figure out how a person like you that's going through dialysis as I'm speaking to her is smiling and giggling and laughing, even though I know this has been.

16:26And by the way, this is recent, everybody. This is not a long time ago. And it is all in the way you've decided to frame this and look at it. So the first thing you said was that Bo saved our lives as opposed to, you know, I had this harrowing experience. And because I gave birth to Bo, these things happened to me. It's completely different. And then the second thing you did is you talked about read your husband and what he was going through looking at his wife sitting there and having this new baby, as opposed to what you were going through, actually experiencing this pain and the agony of the discomfort.

17:06I just want to point that out to you. You're smiling when I say it, but perspective drives everything in life. And I just think you're amazing that that's, and that's truly the way you see it, isn't it? Yep. I think even before this happened, I was, I don't think my personality or who I am has ever changed. Just physically things have changed. And, um, time, time is incredible. Uh, if I were to have been seen at my primary care doctor, urgent care, I don't think they have those ultrasound things. they may have tested me for the flu and and then sent me with an antibiotic just not knowing because i had no other pain just you know shoulder asstoriness uh i would have died that night you know um they wouldn't have been able to to save me if i would have come in for you know pain or something i'm not sure what it would have been but just like i think all the time about how just the steps I took and immediately being like no there's seven people in front of me I'm going to go somewhere else to see if I can be seen a little bit sooner just like that intuition and yeah if the doctors had moved as quickly as they did when I got there or you know Bo didn't show those signs of distress you know it was just a couple of decelerator.

18:38I think they looked for the baby's heart rate and if it goes down. Yeah. And that had happened. This is a little bit, I have to tell you, Brie, it's a little personal for me for two reasons. And then I'm going to ask you some really hard stuff here in a second. Okay.

18:55It's personal for me for two reasons. One, in the birth of my son, he was going through distress with a cord wrapped around his neck and we thought we were losing him. So very different blessings came from that than what you had to go through. But I a little 1 % understand. And then I have a sister, my middle sister, Andrea, who's diabetic, had very similar issues during her C-section that you had. She couldn't coagulate. She was given her last rites twice. Very similar to your situation. And I only say that to you to say that I just have such a heart for you and what you've gone through. I'm curious, and please be honest about this.

19:37How has this changed your perspective on life overall? And even if there's dark times, even if it's, hey, you know, three days a week, I'm terrible. And four days a week, I'm good. Whatever it is, just take us through, if you would, because you're changing lives right now, Bree. Not only did you save your own life, but right now there are millions of people are going through. What I'm going through is not so bad. This precious woman's gone through something different. Or if I do go through something horrific, her wisdom, having been in the middle of it right now, will save me. So how did it change your perspective just on life overall?

20:13I'm curious. I really don't think my perspective on life has changed from what it was like before. I was a palliative care nurse for a bit and so you know just the thought of death and how people decline when you get older and diseases get worse I'm a clinical research nurse for the VA and I was a part of a study that focused on improving quality life and so you know there's so many different measuring tools but just the what i gained from it was that in order to have a quality a good quality of life uh you have to adapt you have to change with what comes to you if you don't if you keep things weighing on your shoulders of what you can't do or what what it used to be like in life then uh i mean you're just gonna be uh pulled down by that for the rest of your life and you know that's heavy and so for me my perspective has always been adapting just changing um things that are in your control and then are not in your control but with that said the thing that truly weighs me down even like till this day is my definition of how to be a mother has significantly changed and it breaks my heart that I can't pick up my baby because my limbs I just can't do it I can't get up the stairs to his room when he's crying.

22:05I can't, it was a long time before we figured out how to position pillows and other tools to feed him. Those things that meant so much to me as a mother for my other two boys, I just can't do. So when I'm in pain and laying in bed, I'll hear my baby cry. And it just kills me that I can't stand up and get to him. I have the love and support of family and friends to be there for him. That's what breaks me. But then again, what grounds me is that I'm here. I'm here to see them grow up although you know other people are around caring for him that still doesn't mean I'm not his mother I I have to remind myself of that that I'm here I get to hear those cries i love you i'm just watching you get so much i just met you and i love you i uh shoot you gotta get me here brie um yeah these three boys are so blessed to have you i think i think a lot of things as a parent i'm sorry gosh you got me there girl um you know a lot of things as as parents with kids I think are caught not taught and these three boys are going to catch some darn toughness away from you some resiliency and it's interesting because that's what people say that like you know your boys are going to be so proud of you but they are just they're not fazed by it at all so there's a five a three and then the baby year old and they just they're like there's times where my five year old kind of catches on like the other day he said he's just looking at me and kind of touched my left arm and said mom you know I wish you had your arm back it was so beautiful and I was like dude but and then I say I wish I had it too but you know we got sick and then they're just like oh something shiny you know like they and then they run away next up is a little song from carmax about selling a car your way you want to sell those wheels you want to get a carmax instant offer so fast want to take a sec to think about it or like a month keep tabs on that instant offer with offer watch

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25:18Mutine. Adjective. Used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice. an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules but behave as if they do not exist. Muteen, the new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you. You said something so powerful about adapting earlier. And the other thing you said is not romanticizing or reminiscing about what used to be. Yeah. I think so many of us, you know, comparison is the thief of joy but really the worst comparison i think can be to a previous time or what could have been it's one of the most painful but i'm curious i'm sure that there's got to be a morning i i imagine you might even have a dream where you still have all of your limbs and then you wake up i have do you every dream you have is that right yeah yeah and so when you wake up and this is some of the hard things i want to ask you because you know sometimes people have a dream that they're still in a relationship they're no longer in or at a job or look away they used to you'll wake up and realize oh my gosh i i don't what do you do because i have to imagine you're flooded with sadness when that happens is there something you do do you pray do you look at your boys and be grateful for that is there something you do to change that state so to speak in you when you hit those moments of comparison to what used to be yeah not so much when i wake up i uh uh it's hard to explain kind of like the transition from a dream to being awake uh having something you don't have anymore but uh you just i just keep going um but what goes through my mind a lot is that i'm not doing enough I'm not there for my boys enough.

27:26Even though just sitting on the floor can be kind of painful for me. I don't have a bone anymore on my right side, where my femur used to be. They had to take that out. And so pain on that side can increase. But then I regret not going to the floor to play with a baby or I used to do so many different activities with my boys that I can't now like build forts you know play outside go into my backyard uh I'm so limited but I just I try to just be in the moment I try to just you know even though I'm not physically kind of playing around uh I'm there to see I'm there to use my voice it's really hard if one of them you know needs to go to timeout it's the middle one He's already like that, where I'll say, you need to go and tell him out, buddy.

28:25And he's like, no. And I'm like, I can't do anything about it. He's going to figure out you can't do anything about it. What do you hope they learn from you, Bree? Have you thought about that yet? You're just all about other people. And so everything you say is other people's experience with you, not your own. I just want you to understand that's why your frame is so beautiful. But I'm curious, since you are so focused on everybody else, and we'll talk about you and Reed in a minute. But what do you hope the boys are learning from you that we can learn from you? Like, don't be humble just for once in your life for a minute here.

28:58Like what, what, what should we be learning from you? And what should, what will your boys be learning from you? You can, you can do more. You can accomplish more than you could ever imagine.

29:15When you doubt yourself, you're going to let that doubt weigh on you. you know just another part of my life just a few months before everything happened my dad died and he was just the best that's all I can say he was just the best

29:41and I don't I'm always curious of what he would think of today and I know it would break him but he also taught me the fact that you don't dwell but you always try to stay humble and that family's everything so I hope I kind of teach my boys the same especially the family aspect family's everything he's very proud of you i could tell you that girl very proud of you god bless you you know um you got me twice now brie don't talk about dads um i know right yeah i uh yeah okay you know everybody's have to say something this is literally why i do the show right here and it's why i'm so honored to bring particular people into your lives.

30:43And I love that I get to share this remarkable person with you all. How's it affected your faith? If you don't mind me asking, did you have faith prior? Has it weakened it, strengthened it, changed it? Oh, goodness. Growing up, I grew up Catholic, growing up high school, college, faith was not a big part of my life. It wasn't until I became a bedside nurse and I recognized the difference in care or the difference in improvement they provided patients and so i would see their family pray or i'd see them do a ritual or something that that would help them and it worked you know and even when someone is passing faith is huge and allowing them to pass I think more gently and so during that time it improved I was my dad was really big with his faith in the Bible and trying to teach us I come from a family of four kids and teach us the ways of the Bible and of course you know we agree with those facts of you know how to be a good person you know and morals and ethics today I hands down believe that my father saved me and the baby I know if he had a choice he would probably choose the baby because he just loved his he loved his grandkids so much that's kind of where my faith has grown is knowing that he's up there and although I'm not very happy with God you know um i am faced with so many i mean i'm meeting so many different people and a lot of them have just kind of say a line from the bible or or uh tell me how important it is you know to believe and to allow god to come into your life but i'm i'm still learning i uh i don't want to jump into anything that i really don't know that i'm just saying i do you know that my faith is strong.

33:23I don't want to just say that. I don't want to change anyone else's opinion about me because of my faith, but all in all, it's growing, I can say. Well, I think that's the all-time honest answer on a podcast and not a podcast answer. That's why you're here. First off, saying that you're mad at God is actually so honest. And so many people go through times in their lives where they are. And, uh, and we have a relationship with God. Now, the fact that we're mad at him indicates he exists in our heart and our spirit. And that's a beautiful thing. And, and seeking to understand why or how over the time of our lives is absolutely appropriate.

34:07And it's a relationship that we have. And what a great answer, by the way, and an honest answer. Cause you know, I asked that question to a hundred people on a podcast, it's just going to be the podcast answer. And that's the real answer. And that's what most people, by the way, in their life, they're struggling with the validity of it, the truth of it. If there is a loving God, why would this be happening to me? And if you do exist, I'm mad at you. And when I get there, you better explain this thing to me. You know, God's going to have some explaining to do to you when you get there and you will get there and it will all be explained, which is the most beautiful part of it.

34:38But thank you for that answer. Guys, I told you, we're going to, this is a deep one today. So I think when you're married to somebody, you're married to Reed, I think you think you know them and you love them. And then I imagine when you go through something this incredible, I mean, you learned something you didn't know or something you thought you knew is validated or so you can't go through something like this and it not somehow alter, change, improve, make worse a marriage it has to how has it changed or you can even give us the before and the after whatever how would you describe what this has done for your relationship with reed your husband he walked into the room oh really all right reed we're talking about you dude um i love him more than i did before uh it's you know um completely honest answer and And he keeps me alive.

35:47He makes sure I still feel beautiful.

35:54And he just does everything. And like you said, you really don't know a person. if I were told you know we eloped in Colorado and if you were to have told me a day that this is the man I married I don't know if I would believe it in general the things he does for me not a lot of close friends would ever do or blood relatives but he does it without question and he makes it so I don't feel like a burden which I know I am gaining independence is something that I work really hard at but it's hard it's hard to build that strength overnight but he is just incredible everyone around us recognizes it and again yeah he's now trying to find his life again.

37:00As I gain more independence, he's kind of finding his life again and what he enjoyed doing. But three kids, including the newborn, and a wife that has no limbs. And to go every day, there's something he's doing. And he tries to make sure everyone gets a part of him and that's wonderful but again it's it's wary and so that's just another motivator for me to be like where you gotta sit up by yourself we're doing all of these crazy things you know with prosthetics and we're uh there's still a few surgeries i need to do um but uh i hope to be standing up again and all that all that stuff yeah well when you do when you do you'll come back on my show's very heavy audio but i hope everybody today you'll give yourself the gift of going over to the youtube and seeing this woman's face because it's uh just so you know brie there is a god and the holy spirit's all over you i'm just telling you you're just a precious soul by the way guys i thought it was a really interesting thing i love the beginning of people's answers when i ask things i listen even closer and you said he makes you feel beautiful and i just want to remind all the dudes listening to this today are you doing that with your lady are you making her feel beautiful and uh ladies is your dude doing that it's one of the things that's and by the way are you making him feel handsome and beautiful i mean i just think that that's not ever said out loud i feel safe i feel loved i trust him well does he make you feel beautiful and what a what a what a wonderful subtle thing you said there that uh stood out to me anyway

38:52When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp. The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Let me ask you this. When, if ever, have you thought of giving up? Don't give me the podcast answer. Give me the Brie answer because you've been doing that all day today. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, there's been a few times.