By Randy Wyrick VAIL — Because it takes one to know one, the women at this week’s Vail Veterans Program’s caregivers conference were best friends before they ever met.
Twenty-eight women are in town — all caregivers for combat veterans who were injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. Just as heroic as those soldiers are the people who take care of them.
Their stories are as different as they are, yet they have so much in common.
One set of stories
Elizabeth Jacks was 19 years old when she married Ryan Jacks. He was a Marine when she met him on a blind date as a high school senior. They dated seven months and married on Nov. 10 in 1995, the U.S. Marine Corps birthday.
He did two deployments in Iraq, 2003 and 2005. He was hit early and often in about every explosion you can imagine. He’s diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and PTSD.
“We have good days and bad days,” Elizabeth said.
He’s not the same man she married; she smiles and says he’s the man to whom she is married.
Ryan is infantry, so he’s consistently training. He was a drill instructor at Paris Island, then Afghanistan twice. He was serving his country, usually somewhere else.
Ryan is retiring after 21 years, which is another adjustment. They’re building a house on a lake.
Elizabeth is a caregiver in three ways: She looks after Ryan, she’s a mother and she’s a nurse. Her son is 21 years old and just returned from Afghanistan last week, landing at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. Their daughter is 12. She’s named Cadence because, well, her dad’s a drill instructor.
“Caregiving is just part of me,” she said.
Not Alone
The caregivers conference helps them learn resilience to deal with the small, everyday stresses we all face. It also teaches them to deal with the unexpected.
“Every day is something different,” Elizabeth said.
The wives and caregivers share all kinds of coping ideas, ranging from meditation and a quiet walk in the woods to a Nerf gunfight.
And even though they sometimes feel overwhelmed, they learned this week that they’re not alone.
“I’m not the only one who deals with this,” Elizabeth said.
Their husbands’ injuries differ, but many of their caregivers’ issues are the same.
Then there are the government agencies.
“Dealing with the VA is always the top of our lists,” Elizabeth said.
She’s a nurse, so she notices every detail and is passionate about them all — occasionally to her husband’s chagrin, she said.
“I’m an immigrant from Poland, and I know what this nation has done for me and my family. I’m all for our veterans and defending their rights. They should be getting the best care,” Elizabeth said.
Her father was one of the leaders of Poland’s Solidarity movement of the 1980s, the first trade union in a Warsaw Pact country not controlled by the Soviets. That trade union helped forced the Soviets’ ouster from Poland and collapse the Soviet Union. Her father escaped Poland and fled to Austria for a few months. He was sponsored by a Polish-American man in Florida …read more
Via:: Vail Daily