This is Chapter 1 in the Wellness Memoir. Come back every Friday for the next two months to walk this journey with Jaimi, one chapter at a time.
My name is Jaimi Erickson, and I am the wife of a retired United States Marine. He served for 24 years on active duty, and during the final 20 years of his military career I was along for the adventure. During the next eight weeks, I will share the pivotal experience that taught me just how strong military spouses can be under pressure. I still look back and am amazed that so much could happen during one year of time.
Living with chronic illness as a military spouse
If there ever was a road map for guiding my life, it was my disease. Since my diagnosis at 10 years old, learning to manage my Crohn’s Disease was my main focus. Like a bully, it forced itself into my life, and I had no choice but to deal with it.
I met my husband during our senior year of high school, and that January I had my first major surgery related to Crohn’s Disease. He was my friend and visited me while I was recovering in the hospital. This guy, who would become my husband five years later, saw me at my worst with tubes stuck in my arm wearing the latest in hospital gown style. With such a personal struggle out in the open, it allowed him to be aware that my disease was a major factor in my life. That made life easier and harder.
As the marriage vow goes, “…in sickness and in health,” and we put that to the test.
By the time I married my husband, he was working to earn a commission in the Marine Corps. After his commissioning, my health felt better than it had in years. We were both looking to the future and hoped to start a family as we were beginning our military life journey.
First duty station and military spouse community
When my husband and I moved to our very first duty station, it was easy to meet friends. Our unit had a strong spouse community. Most of the spouses wanted to get to know each other. We were all close in age and in the same season of life as young, new military spouses. Each of us was only going to be at the duty station for six months, but that did not stop us from putting in the effort to build friendships. We all felt like we were going to be friends forever.
A month into our time there I found out I was pregnant. The joy and nervousness that arrived when the double lines showed up on the pregnancy test cannot be overemphasized. The pregnancy felt like a precious gift I needed to protect. I had to learn to be pregnant with a disease.
Crohn’s Disease is a gastrointestinal illness. So, not embarrassing at all. I won’t gross you out with the details, but my doctor at the time ordered a colonoscopy to assess some symptoms I was having. Being pregnant, I could not receive any sedation during the colonoscopy. The doctor would have to complete the procedure in a less extensive way so he could eliminate the need for me to be sedated during the process.
The good news is I was a pro when it came to colonoscopies. I had already had one per year during each of the previous 10 years of my life. The bad news was my husband would not be able to drive me to the hospital. He was scheduled to be in the field for training.
As many military spouses know, we have an uncanny ability to trust other military spouses upon first meeting them. We do not have months to get to know each other thoroughly before we ask for help. That is exactly what I had to do. I needed one of my new acquaintances to drive me an hour away for the colonoscopy. I emailed the group of spouses asking if anyone was available to drive me to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. for my exam. One of the women replied that she was available on the date and willing to help. I was pregnant, preparing for a GI scope and relying on someone I had known for a month to drive me.
The drive to the appointment was slightly awkward, and the test was not a wonderful experience, but my baby had no issues from the situation which was my main focus at the time.
Stress levels and disease management
The further along the pregnancy progressed, the better I felt. For some reason, my health calmed down. I did not work at the time. Doctors always recommend keeping stress levels down when you have a chronic illness. I wanted to keep my stress level as low as possible after miscarrying my first pregnancy. Keeping stress levels down as a military spouse sounds like a joke, but I tried my best to be the calmest, laziest pregnant lady. My sole focus was to incubate my baby to achieve a successful birth.
Then, baby was born. He was perfectly healthy.
It was a dream to have him in my arms. That season of life was so positive even though my health had given me unique challenges. It prepared me, because I had another life to manage, and we were six weeks away from a PCS move.
New duty station, new deployment
Six weeks after my son was born, we made a PCS move from Virginia to North Carolina. Choosing to live on base, I had high expectations about the village of military spouses I would have there.
Our first duty station had provided an iconic military community even though we had lived off base. Those ladies helped me manage my doctor visits, threw me a surprise baby shower and brought meals after our son was born. I assumed that our next duty station would be the same. But, it was starkly different. No village showed up. Not a single neighbor knocked on our door to welcome us, and one week after we unpacked our boxes, my husband received orders to deploy for a year.
It was at this pivotal point of life, as a new mom, that I had to navigate single parenting, my disease and a year without my service member. Facing all this would prove to be both the worst experience I have ever had and the most empowering year I could ever imagine.