Fighting for Care: A Military Spouse's Journey

In this episode of Living Chronic, Brandy Schantz speaks with Jen, a military spouse and chronic illness warrior, about her journey with colon cancer and the challenges faced within the military healthcare system. They discuss the misdiagnosis, the emotional and financial toll of chronic illness, the impact of toxic exposure on military families, and the urgent need for systemic change in healthcare practices. Jen shares her personal experiences and advocates for better preventative care and support for military families dealing with chronic illnesses.

takeaways

• Both Brandy and Jen experienced misdiagnosis in military healthcare.
• The healthcare system often dismisses patients' concerns, leading to delayed diagnoses.
• Weight gain can be a symptom of serious health issues, not just a lifestyle problem.
• Toxic exposure is a significant risk for military families, affecting their health.
• Preventative care is crucial and often overlooked in military healthcare.
• Chronic illness can take an emotional toll on patients and their families.
• Navigating healthcare in the military can be exhausting and frustrating.
• The financial burden of chronic illness is increasing for military families.
• Systemic changes are needed in military healthcare to improve patient outcomes.
• Advocacy and community support are essential for those dealing with chronic illnesses.

Transcript

Brandy Schantz (00:01.08)
This is Brandy Schantz and you're listening to Living Chronic, Veterans Military Medicine and the Mission Left Behind, our special series. Today I'm here with Jen. She's a military spouse and now a chronic illness warrior living with cancer, the big C. But welcome, Jen. Thank you for coming on the show, especially during such a difficult time. I know you're going through treatments right now. Colon cancer is not easy.

So I appreciate you taking the time out of a busy schedule and a very difficult time in your life.

Jen (00:34.688)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Brandy Schantz (00:38.71)
So you and I have some unfortunate similarities. We both were misdiagnosed by military medicine in the Washington DC area. And folks, if you don't know, everybody thinks that we get all the best stuff here in DC. I don't know how surprised you. I was shocked. I was like, wow, I got misdiagnosed for 19 months. I thought we were supposed to be the best. What happened here?

But same thing happened to you. Tell me a little bit about your story.

Jen (01:09.442)
Yeah, so, oh my goodness, I was hoping that I would get great healthcare being back in DC when we were in Colorado Springs. I feel like I had more slim pickings, but I ended up having some great providers. And when I switched to DC, you know how it is when you move, it's like you have to reestablish a relationship and connection all over again, especially with these providers who are, you know.

Brandy Schantz (01:20.782)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (01:38.305)
They can be very sweet and nice, but you are an expert in your body already and they're, you know, just, I don't know what it is, but they just fought me all the time. And so when I had moved to DC, I ended up gaining a significant amount of weight, probably from stress, my autoimmune disease and other things. And also as an adoptee, I knew I didn't have much family history to go off of. So.

Brandy Schantz (01:49.262)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (02:05.492)
Anytime I would go in for these appointments, I would say things like, this is not right, this is not me. I worked as a functional health coach, I was a yoga teacher, I was so very active and my body was not responding or showing up the way that it always had. And so I would just get constantly written off, constantly. Like, you just probably need to lose some weight and you'll feel better or.

you just need to do this or that or okay, we'll refer you to a physical therapist. But then I would get referred to like a workman's comp physical therapist. And I'm sitting here with, I know, and when you're like a busy, I was a busy stay at home mom with three young kids and I didn't have time for a workman's comp physical therapist. I just didn't have the capacity to keep going to these appointments.

Brandy Schantz (02:44.719)
good, that's helpful.

Jen (03:02.697)
where they would just write me off or you should just stretch this way or do that. And so at some point I would just hear what they were saying and think like, is not helpful. And unless I could find what I needed or the type of provider I wanted and convince them to give me those referrals, I was just kind of out of luck. And so I had already had this kind of this preexisting

like exhaustion from having to fight for every single little thing, you know, and it didn't really matter if I had switched to standard because I was on the HMO and if I switched to the PPO, like the DC area is just so saturated and people don't want to take track here, which I understand that. And so it really didn't matter what I was doing. I was constantly hitting a wall with care and treatment, even preventative treatment. And that's when

Brandy Schantz (03:33.176)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (03:48.302)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jen (04:00.809)
I had asked for a colonoscopy and was denied and I was 30, I think like 39 years old, the first time I asked for one, you know, and I was just so tired of fighting for every single thing that when they said, well, you don't have any symptoms of colon cancer, I thought, okay, well, maybe this is just the one area that I, you know, kind of back, like not backtrack on, but.

just kind of step off of because I had had to arrange all of my care, you know? And so just even preventative things, which at the time I thought would just be a preventative thing, I didn't realize that something like that would have literally saved my life if I had pushed for it. But when you're pushing for just basic things, like it just gets so exhausting.

Brandy Schantz (04:31.32)
right?

Brandy Schantz (04:45.486)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (04:52.478)
It does. At one point I asked Walter Reed to put in my chart very clear and upfront what I was going through and tell them I have medical trauma. Please do not start with me. was kind of the gist of the statement I asked him to put on there because it's exhausting. You can only fight for yourself so long. also you feel crazy.

Jen (05:05.918)
Right.

Brandy Schantz (05:16.598)
I've questioned my own life experience and body so many times, because I thought maybe I am crazy. Maybe I'm not really feeling this. Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe it is all in my head. And it's not until you get to that doctor that does the tests that you need that you realize, I'm not crazy at all. And unfortunately, that's how it happened for you. And you are stage four colon cancer.

Jen (05:16.66)
Yeah.

Jen (05:24.191)
Right.

Jen (05:34.857)
Great.

Jen (05:41.086)
Yeah, I'm stage four colon cancer. So my cancer is I have two tumors the size of almost grapefruits, one in my colon and one in my liver because of this. And so this has been going on for quite some time, you know, and I just didn't have their symptoms that they were looking for. But to be fair, I should have known better. You know, years ago when we were on J-Bab the first time,

Brandy Schantz (05:52.174)
Mm.

Brandy Schantz (06:02.958)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (06:10.461)
I went in for strep throat and my doctor decided to just, you he wrote me off. He's like, I don't think you have strep throat, but I see you're not on birth control. So we should talk about birth control. And I was like, are you kidding me? So I went to an urgent care and my doctor there said, you clearly have strep throat. I see it. You know, looking at, looking in your throat. And so I think.

Brandy Schantz (06:31.266)
Yeah.

Jen (06:35.718)
what they need to, the clinic needs to do is just be extremely honest about the type of care that they were willing to provide, you know, and if they don't want to dive into these deep, difficult things, then they should just be really upfront about that. But they should have given me, you know, they should have referred me for a colonoscopy. And if they, could tell the hesitation was probably because, you know, it's not that standard. It's like not their standard of care. And so,

they should have at least given me a way to figure out how to do it myself instead of telling me, you're fine. You're young. You know, there's probably nothing wrong with you. You don't have any symptoms. We see no reason to give you this. And here I am sitting here. You know, I was in the hospital on my 41st birthday, waiting for this diagnosis and I still wouldn't fit their criteria for five more years. So

Brandy Schantz (07:13.496)
bright.

Brandy Schantz (07:24.685)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (07:31.566)
You know, what's so infuriating about that is what is the criteria? What is the criteria? Younger and younger people are being diagnosed with colon cancer all the time. We all remember when Chadwick Boseman died. He was, I think it was he 41 years old. He was so, so young. He was so young and this is happening every single day. So what is your criteria? The other thought I have is

Jen (07:43.88)
Yeah.

Jen (07:57.223)
I'm.

Brandy Schantz (07:59.768)
Toxic exposure, and we talked about this a little bit before we started the show. We talk a lot about toxic exposure in terms of the burn pits and service members being exposed to these burn pits and subsequently getting these diseases, these rare cancers, these autoimmune diseases. But spouses and family members are very much exposed to toxins as well. Every military base.

You're probably exposed to toxins there. There are so many different bases that still have issues with various munitions that have been buried under the ground. You've got the fire foam that's being sprayed just, you know, not even a quarter mile away from family housing. There's so many toxic exposures that you are exposed to just like your service member, family member.

Jen (08:34.303)
Okay.

Jen (08:43.806)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (08:52.539)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (08:52.908)
Why would there not be increased screening for colon cancer in our younger family members? That's infuriating.

Jen (09:00.124)
I agree. I totally agree. And they know that we're exposed to this. And I've heard stories of not my friends, but friends of friends who were young, healthy women who ended up just, you know, riddled with cancer and grew up as a military, you know, military brat grew up in this and then went on to marry a military member or become one. And they

Brandy Schantz (09:04.653)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (09:16.366)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jen (09:26.57)
It's just wild to me, you know? And if people are having unexplained symptoms too, why not? Why not just look for a, figure out a way to test for it, screen it?

Brandy Schantz (09:28.908)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (09:37.346)
Yes, preventative care is so much cheaper than treatment care. So much cheaper. And also, you save lives. How much better is it to catch colon cancer at stage one versus stage four?

Jen (09:40.19)
So much cheaper. Yeah.

Jen (09:49.384)
exactly, exactly. It would have been so much more treatable, you know, because when I had my colonoscopy, they removed six millimeter polyps that were before they were cancerous, you know, and that's just part of the colonoscopy, you know, and then meanwhile, that I just have this full on cancer tumor, you know, that they could remove with great risk or...

Brandy Schantz (10:05.228)
Yep.

Jen (10:15.576)
now I have to go through treatment before we remove what we're able to remove. And so it's just so risky, but it could have been easily prevented and they didn't, they didn't offer me anything preventative. had to really ask for everything and it just got so exhausting when I finally convinced them to give me a mammogram and to test, get a skin check for skin cancer, you know, and do all of these things. And I am like, why isn't this just a standard?

Brandy Schantz (10:20.354)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (10:40.429)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (10:44.654)
Standard. It should be. It should be. You know, one of the things that I think I know a lot about IBD and colon cancer being a Crohn's patient, I have a podcast, I'm on the board of the Crohn's Colitis Foundation in DC. But I learned more speaking to you because one of your symptoms was weight gain. And my doctors are always on top of me. Did you lose weight? Have you lost weight? Are you losing weight? So I'm always worried about losing weight.

Jen (10:45.873)
standard of care. Yeah.

Jen (11:07.546)
Yeah.

Jen (11:10.907)
I'm done.

Brandy Schantz (11:14.53)
But weight gain was one of your symptoms.

Jen (11:18.587)
Yeah, which is crazy. And that's, you know, and that was kind of the thing. But when you're someone who gains weight, that's all they focus on. That's literally all they focus on, right? And it's you, you can't be anything other than you're just fat and you probably weren't working out or you probably weren't eating well. And I am like one of the healthiest people, just like you, I am one of the healthiest people I know.

Brandy Schantz (11:33.059)
Yes.

Jen (11:43.441)
just like you're one of the healthiest people you know. And so it is so shocking to me, but once you're in a heavier body, you are just a heavy person to them and nothing else matters in terms of their tests. And so everything circles back to, well, you just need to learn how to lose weight the healthy way. And I'm sitting here thinking like, this is not normal. This is a red flag.

Brandy Schantz (11:53.347)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (12:07.778)
You know, this is especially, this whole conversation is especially poignant to me because I also recently gained a lot of weight as I went through my dysautonomia and POTS diagnosis. And I kept trying to tell them, I mean, the whole diagnosis, you know, experience to what you went through when I told the doctor, I mean, I was a runner, a very good runner, a triathlete, a very accomplished one.

Jen (12:21.115)
Right.

Jen (12:26.459)
Mm.

Brandy Schantz (12:36.01)
And I would tell them, cannot run. And I would hear things like, well, maybe you're going out too fast. If you're not hydrated, it can affect. Do you think I've been running for 40 years without knowing these things, Doc? Are you serious? And then when I started gaining weight, I said, I'm gaining weight and there's no explanation. Well, to lose weight, have to, I'm like, whoa, whoa, Can you please look at my?

Jen (12:39.122)
Wait.

Jen (12:49.796)
Great.

Jen (12:56.753)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (13:03.406)
Records for a quick minute and it turns out I think you know I might be getting this wrong somebody out there's fact-checking me and say nope you got it wrong, but I think it was like 8 % of people with dysautonomia get unexplained weight gain and That was me, but nobody they weren't looking at the big picture of all these symptoms I had it was well You know you should probably be eating more fish and less steak, and I'm like what?

Jen (13:18.499)
Yeah.

Jen (13:30.798)
Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy because they...

Brandy Schantz (13:33.452)
You missed the entire diagnosis.

Jen (13:36.122)
Yeah, because they're just so not trained in it. And instead of saying like, I don't have the proper training in this, they throw out what they think is the case. I think, and I don't know where this stems to in training and all of this, but if I was a doctor or if I was some sort of provider, I would want to say, wow, like this, you know, this is unusual for you. What can we do to figure this out? Even if you think it's a waste of time and money, or even if you think it's this or that.

Brandy Schantz (13:39.522)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (14:01.806)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (14:06.3)
Like in my case and your case, they would have found something. And they would have... Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (14:09.9)
Yes. And ask questions. I mean, my goodness, I didn't know that 8 % of people with dysautonomia experienced weight gain. And I never in a million years thought weight gain could be a symptom of colon cancer. But obviously it is. So, hey, we're not all usual. And again, if you've listened to my show, especially if you've listened to any of the veteran specific shows, you know that the rare cancers, the rare symptoms, they come with those of us who've been exposed to toxins all the time.

And again, just because you're a spouse and not a service member does not mean you haven't been exposed to toxins. We should be looking at the unusual.

Jen (14:48.233)
Yeah, it should be considered and it's so funny because, you know, it's just they ask these questions and I'm thinking like we're in this military community. We don't have, I don't know, they act surprised. They seem to act so surprised when, you know, we discuss this stuff and it's like my friends and I talk about the stress factor of things, you know, when they're surprised that we're stressed.

Brandy Schantz (15:04.312)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (15:09.933)
Yes.

Jen (15:13.079)
Because that was one of my things. When I went in and asked for a colonoscopy, they sent me out with a diagnosis of depressive disorder. And I'm looking back at all of these things and I'm like, we are all so stressed. All of us are so stressed. Like this is a stressful, it's a stressful life. We end up in hugely stressful seasons of life. We do have this exposure.

Brandy Schantz (15:22.21)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (15:35.79)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (15:38.203)
We do have physical things happening from all of this, but the fact that it's so easily written off as, you you just have anxiety or you're just stressed or you're just anything. And that when I went to the hospital, when I finally got my diagnosis, I was severely anemic. And the whole time it was like, oh, you're probably, you know, it's probably just stress and anxiety. And at that time I believed it because I am not an anxious person.

And I have a lot of ways to handle my stress, but we were PCSing. And so when you're kind of in that season, that's stressful. So like maybe it's stress, I don't know. And then when you have a hemoglobin of five and the next step from there is having a stroke or just dropping dead, then maybe it might be something a little more than that. And when you're going back to symptoms, a lot of us don't have.

Brandy Schantz (16:16.216)
Y-yeah, I think-

Jen (16:35.534)
symptoms and don't have like the normal symptoms. You know, you can't tell like you would think I could feel two grapefruit size tumors in my body. I can't feel them at all. You know, it's just they're there and I can't feel them.

Brandy Schantz (16:37.304)
Right? Right?

Brandy Schantz (16:51.04)
Right? No, you're right. And you know, all you can do is ask for appropriate medical care.

Jen (16:52.685)
song.

Jen (17:00.589)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (17:01.976)
But the truth is, if they're not going to listen, and if they're going to just say, you're just depressed and stressed out, or you're just eating too much food, there's only so much you can do. And I think there's so many similarities with all of us. You do get tired of pushing and advocating for yourself. There's only so many years you can do it. There's only so long you can do it before you're like, you know what? I can't do it anymore. I'm at the end of this road. I need to take a turn.

Jen (17:09.593)
Yeah

Jen (17:19.96)
Yeah.

Jen (17:25.389)
Right. Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (17:29.294)
I need to turn right, need to turn left, but I need to take a turn. I can't keep doing this. Yeah, I gotta move on.

Jen (17:31.905)
I need to live my life because I can't just be, I can't be obsessed with this all the time. I might be dealing with it every day, but I have to find a way around it, you know? And so what do you do from there? Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (17:38.211)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (17:44.654)
You got kids depending on you? Your husband's depending on you? Civilians will never get this, but in the military, and this still goes on today in the year 2025, but you know, which blows my mind, spouses are fully intended to have their own full-time job to support their service member. Free of charge, no pay, you're there. you know, I remember, know, women...

Jen (18:03.522)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (18:10.702)
and the military know this better than anybody because they would always expect us to have a spouse there to do something and I'm like my spouse is at work too. You have to, he's otherwise engaged. I don't know what to say. You're have to go down there and find him. But you know, you're busy with that too.

Jen (18:13.739)
Mm-mm.

Jen (18:18.818)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jen (18:29.805)
Right, right, you're just busy and you know this and people in the chronic illness community know this, but you just start to feel like a burden at some point. Because here you are, just tired again, just in pain again, and my husband apologized to me for, he's never said anything terrible to me or mean, but he would try to encourage me too. Like, what if you just did more heavy loaded squats and then you could build a, you know.

Brandy Schantz (18:39.65)
Yeah, yeah you do.

Jen (18:59.458)
filled up your leg muscles and then that will give you more energy, know, and like, and I'm just wondering.

Brandy Schantz (19:04.758)
his heart was in the right place and he's not wrong. I do that for my pots all the time. It's you know what the strong legs really do take you somewhere.

Jen (19:11.833)
It's so true, you know, it's so funny because then my whole family looks back at it and is like, oh my gosh, like you were literally dying. I'm like, yeah, I was dying. Like I still am, you know, I mean, I'm, think things will be fine, but I'm, you know, I'm like, you guys have to believe me. Like I know it's been years of me having these symptoms, but once things started getting so much worse and not.

Brandy Schantz (19:12.524)
hearts in the right place.

Brandy Schantz (19:19.862)
And I had cancer! Yes!

Jen (19:36.818)
me being able to stabilize is when I realized, okay, maybe this is something extremely serious. You know, but you just, your loved ones are just like, okay, here she is again.

Brandy Schantz (19:41.998)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (19:47.832)
You know, you're dismissed by these doctors over and over and over again. So like I said, you, your family, everybody starts to think, well, maybe I am crazy. Maybe I'm not feeling, maybe it is that I'm just overweight. My goodness, maybe that is causing cancer-like symptoms.

Jen (19:51.864)
Right.

Jen (19:56.684)
Great.

Maybe.

Brandy Schantz (20:03.788)
You know, you do question yourself. That's completely normal, you know? It's hard. And you know, we have such similarities in what we went through in this DC metro area. Again, everybody thinks, you're probably getting the best health care. have such great doctors around there. But this is a good time to talk about a couple of things that are going on in military health care right now. The first is when there was the big downsizing of military treatment facilities.

Jen (20:06.669)
Yeah.

Jen (20:30.785)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (20:31.178)
And they said, well, we'll just send everybody. They started getting rid of all of the non-combat related health care on base. We'll just send everybody out to the community, the community, the private sector, right? Like everybody says that when you're in the military, like it's this glorious utopia out there, the private sector. Except the private sector doesn't have room for us. They're already overworked. And by the way, trichare often reimburses at a rate even lower than Medicare. So.

Jen (20:37.227)
Yes.

Jen (20:42.797)
you

Jen (20:59.38)
Right.

Brandy Schantz (21:01.378)
We're also not paying the doctors in this utopia called the private sector. So they're not taking us and I don't blame them. You know, when you're already overworked and you don't have time to take any more patients, why are you going to take on a heavy load of tricare patients when you're not even going to get reimbursed well for it? So more and more in this area over the last, I think it's been what, five years since that started, five, six years, I've seen more and more where either

Jen (21:08.481)
Yeah.

Jen (21:14.24)
Right.

Brandy Schantz (21:30.006)
offices don't take TRICARE at all, or they just stop taking new patients. Okay, we'll keep the guys that we already have, but we're not taking any more of you. So getting actual care on the community is extremely difficult. And in the meantime, it's hard to get into these military treatment facilities. I've had to, you know, practically pull out, and I'm not kidding here, an act of Congress to get to see a specialist.

Jen (21:32.065)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (21:41.411)
yeah.

Brandy Schantz (21:54.548)
at Walter Reed when I used to just go to Walter Reed and I just, you I got diagnosed with my Crohn's disease there. I had the best doctor in the world. I still miss Dr. Lasek tremendously. And he would send me upstairs to see the rheumatologist like, you know what, let's check you out for this because I hate seeing you with so many problems. But that doesn't exist anymore. And this is a very real problem in the DC metro area. So it's not surprising that you and I

Jen (22:17.26)
It is.

Brandy Schantz (22:19.148)
Both were misdiagnosed. both, because when I wasn't getting diagnosed at Walter Reed, I thought maybe there's better care at JBAB. And boy was I wrong. And then I was misdiagnosed at JBAB. So I don't think it's any surprise that we both have the exact same experience here in the DC area.

Jen (22:22.913)
Great.

Jen (22:34.131)
No, not at all. you know what one of the things was, anytime you would get referred to a specialist somewhere, it was you're months, months out, you know, yeah, months out from seeing them and then they would move or then they were sick. You know, something would happen or you wait all this time and you're thinking this is going to be the thing that helps me and you go and they're like, well, you know, we don't know what to do. So you get referred out to the economy and there you are at the workman's comp.

Brandy Schantz (22:42.613)
month yes

Brandy Schantz (22:47.042)
Yep. Yes.

Jen (23:02.071)
rheumatologist and physical therapist, in which I'm glad those exist, but those don't exist for what I'm dealing with. And my doctors were always sweet and kind, but they could never go above and beyond. I think when I went for my hypermobile EDS, I met with a rheumatologist that said, you should try something called low dose naltrexone. And I said, great, can you prescribe it to me?

Brandy Schantz (23:03.66)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (23:10.211)
Right?

Brandy Schantz (23:27.886)
Hmm.

Jen (23:30.079)
And she said, no, I'm not allowed to, but, and it's like a nothing, it's like a nothing medication. It's, it has to get compounded. That's the big thing. And she's like, I can't, but I think you can find like an online doctor who can do it. And then I was able to do that, but I'm thinking I'm with you, a doctor right now. Can you, can you, yeah. Can you do this for me? And it did help. It helped so much with my pain. And it was like a milligram of.

Brandy Schantz (23:36.365)
Right.

Brandy Schantz (23:46.446)
Yes.

Right? you can't, yeah.

Jen (23:59.11)
of naltrexone, you know, and then I would go back to J-Bab and talk to my doctor about it. And they would say, no, naltrexone is only used to wean addicts from, you know, things. And I'm like, yeah, at 50 milligrams, but at one milligram, it's like nothing, you know, and it treats your pain. Yeah. Yeah, it's.

Brandy Schantz (24:10.958)
Yeah, they're using it for a lot now.

Yeah, no, I mean, I've been looking into it for my own treatment.

Jen (24:21.301)
It's great. Well, we can talk, me and you can talk about that later too, because you know, it's, I loved it. But why am I paying $150 to talk to a doctor and then another $60 to a compounding pharmacy, you know, and then you, you're just doing this and it, it adds up. It's like so.

Brandy Schantz (24:24.375)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (24:29.912)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (24:36.525)
Yeah.

Well, it is getting very expensive too, because like you, I have all this long list of issues and I have to see various doctors and specialists because there's so many niche things. have all of the rare diseases. You and I have so many of them together, as a matter of fact, it's interesting. All the rare diseases, we're just lining them up. And the co-pays have gone up. There's all these new shared costs we have. My husband asked me.

Jen (24:54.088)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (25:05.614)
Just the other day, he's like, what does TRICARE cost you these days? And I'm like, honey, you just don't want to know. You just don't want to know. Just don't even look. It's just every day, it's a new $80 charge here, $150 there, $60 here. It's not what it used to be. Maybe I'm sounding old. I actually think this is a newer change, because I remember not that long ago, it was always like, $10, $20 copay, move on with your life.

Jen (25:10.931)
Yeah. Don't like it.

Jen (25:20.617)
Right, it's not.

Jen (25:29.652)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (25:30.97)
and it's just getting more and more expensive just to see that doctor. And you have to because they won't see us on the military treatment facilities anymore if you're a family member or a retiree.

Jen (25:36.243)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (25:42.397)
Right. It's getting harder and harder. And like at J-Bab, they just removed a bunch of providers, you know, and people are, well, where do I go? Who do I go to? How can I get in? Like, Belvoir has a long way. Andrews has a long way. You know, everybody is busy and it's hard and you can't go out on the economy. And DC was a really stressful place for me to go through what I went through. I am so glad I made it to where I did.

Brandy Schantz (25:52.13)
Yes?

Brandy Schantz (26:00.546)
Yeah.

No.

Jen (26:12.061)
when I got diagnosed because I just, I would still be in the process of getting diagnosed, I'm sure, if I was in DC or Miss, you know.

Brandy Schantz (26:19.906)
No, absolutely misdiagnosed over a note. Yeah. I don't think people realize just how bad it is. And it's worth noting that this is a known problem. We are having issues with this downsizing of military health. And there was a hearing at the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services in March and Lieutenant General Dr. Douglas Robb, Major General Dr. Paul Friedrichs and Colonel Dr. Jeremy Cannon all spoke at that.

Jen (26:22.6)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (26:50.456)
committee hearing and you can Google it, you know, the testimony is available to read, but all three agreed that the downsizing of military health and really the defunding of it in so many ways is causing so many issues for not just our service members, but families as well. We're just not getting the care that frankly we're owed. We were promised when we came into this service that

Jen (27:10.94)
Mm.

Brandy Schantz (27:20.094)
us and our families would be cared for. And we're just not being cared for right now.

Jen (27:23.685)
Mm-hmm. Right. You're right. And that was, that is a promise that they made to us. And it just doesn't...

Brandy Schantz (27:30.35)
And you can't keep it up. And again, this is going to be a larger problem. There's been some other talk, some other episodes on this series where we've talked about women in the military or spouses having to go to the ER to give birth because there's no OBGYNs in the community to take them and the military get rid of all of them on base. This is a readiness issue. You know, if you're in command right now,

Jen (27:52.436)
Yeah, absolutely.

Brandy Schantz (27:57.91)
you're worried about the health of not just your service members, but their families as well, because we're just not getting the healthcare, which means that we have a readiness issue.

Jen (28:03.494)
Exactly. Exactly.

Brandy Schantz (28:07.714)
So it's something we all need to be paying more attention to.

Jen (28:11.966)
Yeah, and that's what I, that's what like you, I want to change that somehow because this is, it's exhausting, it's expensive. It has taken so much time away from my family and my community, you know? And so here, here we are sitting in this place where, you know, I'm now costing a lot of money to the system. Yeah. Rest of our lives. Yeah. Really? I mean,

Brandy Schantz (28:16.621)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (28:34.37)
Very expensive and we've talked about it the rest of our lives. You've got us now. You could have stopped this guys.

Jen (28:41.811)
Absolutely, really. under $5,000, they could have found and prevented everything. And now, not even talking about my ER bill, my monthly medication is $20,000. And so I don't know what their thinking was. I'm pretty sure the thinking was, we don't want to spend money on a colonoscopy because that is too expensive. But come on, guys.

Brandy Schantz (28:48.568)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (28:56.803)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (29:04.344)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jen (29:09.715)
could give a lot of people colonoscopies,

Brandy Schantz (29:13.378)
And of course we could, we could expand this to even bigger concepts because they're still, I, and I try to say this every episode that it's appropriate. They're still using burn pits and they're also being in the United States of America near military bases. So they're still using it and poisoning service members. They're using them and poisoning service members and their families as well. So, you know, all of these things, it costs a little bit more to get rid of waste in a different manner other than burn pits, but you know what?

Jen (29:23.75)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (29:34.962)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (29:43.522)
How much do we cost? Just call Veterans Affairs. They complain about how much we cost every day, every day. We're expensive. Once you cause the problem, this is bad, and you're just causing so many problems by not giving service members and their families the appropriate care upfront to prevent these catastrophic and expensive issues later on.

Jen (29:50.535)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jen (29:56.2)
Yes.

Jen (30:06.387)
Right. Well, and that's the thing. It's like, they just don't see the big picture of things. And the big picture is keep us healthy and limit our exposure and limit what we have to deal with. instead, and you see this all throughout the military, you see it in privatized housing, especially. Paint over the mold. And then it's not a problem anymore. And when in fact it's

Brandy Schantz (30:12.045)
Mm-mm.

Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (30:26.86)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Jen (30:36.059)
a worse problem that's going to cost more money down the road. And, you know, and, they just don't see that it's like, what's the cheapest, quickest way to clean something up right now. And essentially it's just sweeping things under the rug. And so.

Brandy Schantz (30:43.032)
they don't.

Brandy Schantz (30:51.47)
Well, and it's passing the buck as well. I find it so interesting that the Pentagon is, think, what is it? Maybe two, three metro stops from Veterans Affairs right down the road from each other. And the Pentagon is always saving money today and costing money to the VA tomorrow. And the VA has a lot of issues with all these toxic exposures and how much money they have to spend on Veterans care.

Jen (30:54.523)
Yeah.

Jen (31:05.202)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (31:10.876)
Yes.

Yes.

Brandy Schantz (31:22.798)
DoD, Pentagon, they really don't care to hear about it. And these two entities never seem to meet up together at the same hearing in front of Congress. And that's what we need. Pentagon folks, VA folks, come together. This is a pipeline, and it's an expensive pipeline. It's a deadly pipeline, and none of us deserve it. And what's worse is family members are falling through the cracks. Because right now, you're particular, to be fair, you're

Jen (31:26.556)
Thank you.

Jen (31:33.938)
Okay, yeah.

Jen (31:42.806)
yeah.

Brandy Schantz (31:52.494)
colon cancer is due to a condition you have.

Jen (31:58.916)
Yes. Yeah, however, because of ethics, genetics, what triggered it? You know,

Brandy Schantz (32:04.118)
And that's where the environmental comes in. And while service members are covered under the PACDAC, nobody's talking about families and your exposure to toxins as well. And you're suffering just like we do.

Jen (32:14.908)
Yeah.

Right. Right. And you see that a lot with a lot of families due to exposure. And I think the thing people know the most about would be mold, but they don't, you know, which is a huge issue in military families, our land, you know, where you live, the environment you live in and what you're exposed to is also really huge. And so what do you do? You know, cause I feel like if there's mold, you can probably find it and blame it. But when it's the jet fuel in your soil,

Brandy Schantz (32:22.168)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (32:26.413)
Yeah.

Jen (32:47.722)
or whatever's leaching in through your water or whatever you're inhaling, maybe you can't see that as much. And then, yeah.

Brandy Schantz (32:52.526)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Schantz (32:57.996)
Yeah. And we know this is true as well because when I, I've told you, when I go to the Veterans Affairs Hospital and I'm asked about the toxic exposure and they clearly see that I served in Afghanistan near a burn pit, but they also can clearly see that I've been in the military for decades because I was born into a military family. And that's when they started asking me, where was I stationed as a child?

Jen (33:09.105)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (33:14.789)
Yes.

Jen (33:19.787)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (33:21.378)
So they know. Again, the VA knows. Please get the VA guys in the same room as the DOD guys. It's important. Yeah.

Jen (33:28.633)
Right, right, that's what needs to happen. you know, meanwhile, we're trying to figure out what we can do, you know, and how do we get that to happen? How do we get them together?

Brandy Schantz (33:41.364)
Exactly, exactly, because you know, our military and our families, we all deserve better. We deserve better. You deserve better. To be diagnosed with stage four colon cancer when you clearly could have had this prevented much earlier, again, same place I was misdiagnosed at J-Bab. It's very unfortunate and clearly there needs to be some steps taken to improve the healthcare and improve the funding of the healthcare for our military and our families.

Jen (33:47.387)
Right, right, right.

Jen (34:08.357)
Yeah, I know, I agree with you. There really has to, because we're not the only people with these stories, right? There's so many, so many people. I was overwhelmed with response of similar stories and people have been fighting these things for years, you know, and it's such a, it's such a battle. And it doesn't have to be.

Brandy Schantz (34:13.783)
No.

No. Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (34:29.292)
Yes. Well, we are. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. And it shouldn't have to be. We shouldn't have to fight for what we are owed. We shouldn't have to fight to make the government keep the promises that they made to us.

Jen (34:39.653)
Right.

Jen (34:43.748)
Yeah, exactly.

Brandy Schantz (34:46.38)
So we have a lot of work going for the two of us. Well, you have so much, you know, you're still going through treatment. How's your treatment going?

Jen (34:52.464)
Treatment's going. I'm halfway through my first round of immunotherapy. So we will see how it goes. But I like, I'm losing out on so much time with my family because I'm so tired, you know, and so sick from treatment. And so when I don't want to get mad about how things happen, I realized the big picture of my life and how much it's affected my life and how

Brandy Schantz (35:21.164)
Yeah. You want to live your life. There's things you wanted to do beyond spend every waking moment at a doctor trying to get an appointment, get a test, get a prescription, find a diagnosis.

Jen (35:22.03)
You know.

Jen (35:31.64)
Right. Exactly. You know, that time spending the rest of my day today is two more appointments. And who has time for that? What would I do if I was working a full-time job right now? You know?

Brandy Schantz (35:45.998)
Can we all just talk? I mean, that's a whole nother show that we'll have to do. Can we just talk about that? know, we need a better safety net in this country in general for when people become chronically ill. It's, you know, please tell me what I'm supposed to do when, you know, I have to take whatever appointment I can get and they're always at like 2 p.m. or 11 a.m. or something right in the middle of the day.

Jen (35:50.297)
Yeah.

Jen (36:08.854)
yeah.

Brandy Schantz (36:10.614)
And each appointment lasts a few hours. And sometimes the doctor's late. And then I'm sick for a few hours for certain treatments. And please, US government, tell me, what shall I do here? I'm doing my best. I'm keeping up. Tread and water.

Jen (36:18.903)
yeah.

Jen (36:25.741)
Right, right, and that, yeah, you're right. And that is a whole other conversation, because what do you do? I don't know how I would handle this if I was in a different situation right now. And so I feel fortunate, but then I am sick, 10 days, two weeks after my treatment. And what do I do once we start school in two weeks? And I've got to figure out getting my kids to school and making it to appointments and.

Brandy Schantz (36:30.136)
Yeah.

Brandy Schantz (36:34.274)
Yeah. Right.

Jen (36:54.466)
figuring, just figuring life out. And so it's, yeah.

Brandy Schantz (36:57.335)
Yeah.

which is why the military also needs better care systems for family members. There should be a safety net there again, somebody to take the kids to school for you while you're going through this, help you out, you know. And there's just so much, so much we need to be doing. But I really appreciate you sharing your story. We have so much more work to do. you know, we've talked, we have to do something. So of course we're going to do something. I'm getting together some form letters that you can send to your

Jen (37:18.499)
Thank you.

Jen (37:25.347)
Yes.

Brandy Schantz (37:29.004)
representatives on my website and you know we need to come together as a community all of us for one big family we've always been one big family and it's time that we do something to really help each other out because if we don't do something we're all dying and it's not acceptable

Jen (37:44.83)
Right.

Right, and that's it. Thank you for doing all of that because that's what I want to take now is action and make a change because nobody should be going through this.

Brandy Schantz (37:56.298)
Yeah, so everybody, nope. So everybody listening, be sure to go to the show notes. I will have plenty of information there. Check out my website, brandyshaunce.com. I will have more stuff up. I'm trying to get all that together and get it up on the website within the next two to three weeks. So hopefully maybe by the time this episode airs, I've accomplished this website task, which is always slow for me. But we have a lot of work to do.

Jen (38:18.479)
You

Brandy Schantz (38:23.565)
And thank you for standing up, sharing your story, and doing so much to be a great leader in this realm because we need leaders like you.

Jen (38:34.905)
Thank you, Brandi, and we need leaders like you too. So this year giving me a voice and a way to move forward. So I really appreciate it.

Brandy Schantz (38:43.64)
Thank you so much, and till next time.