Shawn James Van Dyke

Hi! I’m Elaina, Shawn’s wife, best friend, and caregiver, and we are raising money with the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with his rapidly progressing MS. We have chosen to fundraise with Help Hope Live in part because donations are tax deductible for contributors and will only be used to cover medical and related expenses.

So let me tell you a little bit about us. We met in 2009 a few years after my full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Estonia. We had a whirlwind courtship, and were married two months later! We shared a mutual love of Christ, motorcycles, music, art, road trips, and good food. The first three years of our marriage were an unencumbered adventure. But Shawn was diagnosed in May of 2014 with Multiple Sclerosis after a series on unexplained medical deficiencies began to impede his every day life. I was serving as an Active Duty Soldier at Ft Belvoir, VA at the time. We believed his growing symptoms were related to a near death motorcycle accident he was in on Feb 28th 2012.

That was the day our lives changed forever. I was at the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) in Phoenix that day, anxiously taking my entrance exams and anticipating what kind of job skill I could qualify for as a soldier. I had always wanted to serve my country and at 31 years old, time was running out! Shawn was so excited too. Always my biggest cheerleader, he championed my 100 lb weight loss so I could qualify and came with me to every meeting I had with my recruiter. So it came as a shock that day when he didn’t answer the phone when I was all finished with my exams. For five hours, I had no idea where he was until finally, an unfamiliar voice answered his phone. It was his ICU nurse who told me he’d nearly been killed in an accident while I’d had my phone in a locker at MEPS. Racing to the hospital, I had no thoughts of the Army, only of Shawn. When I got there, I learned that he’d suffered a TBI, a fractured pelvis, and ruptured urethra. He was still unconscious, on oxygen, and in a C-collar. After eight days in the hospital, he was released with a suprapubic catheter, orders to limit mobility, and cautionary advice to avoid overstimulation, as his TBI could cause irrational outbursts of irritability for months. What we didn’t expect was for his energy to never regain fully, or for his foot to persist in dragging behind him while he walked.

But life went on. After a six month delayed entry program, I went to Basic Training and AIT where I learned to be a Radiologic Technologist for the Army. I did my clinicals on Oahu at Tripler Army Medical Center where he came for a visit, because Hawaii! It was then that he noticed he had lost basic balance as he fell several times at the beaches of Bellows Air Force Base. Concerned and perplexed, but still attributing it to his motorcycle accident, we bought him a cane.

When I finished my training we went on to my first duty station at Ft Belvoir in VA. His symptoms of imbalance, fine tune motor function loss, irritability, and depression only deepened to the point that he was hospitalized on a mental health hold. Terrified of the unknown, needing answers, he was finally and thoroughly evaluated for the underlying causes of all this decline. He got his first round of MRIs and it was confirmed that he had Multiple Sclerosis. Ironically, we hadn’t been completely wrong regarding the cause of his decline. Had he not been in that accident and suffered his TBI, his MS may have been asymptomatic for years. We were devastated, but life went on. I was still Active Duty with obligations to my country that I could not neglect, but I also now had a spouse who had become nearly bedbound within a matter of months. Navigating this unfamiliar territory was devastating on both of our physical and emotional well beings. We went through the course of many emotional roller coasters together as we learned to use bed side commodes, super grip utensils, self catheters, and he graduated from cane, to walker, to wheelchair so rapidly we could scarce keep up. I was only able to continue my duties as a soldier thanks to a Medicaid waiver that afforded us a home health aid. She was amazing and we’ll never forget Rebecca for her kindness and positivity! But when the time came for me to promote to non-commissioned officer, I knew I could not attend the out-of-state training required, nor could I refuse a direct order from my commander.

So began my journey to leave the military. I had one year left on my first enlistment term when I was forced to file for compassionate early release with the help of my Ombudsmen. Weeks of gathering documents, paperwork, testimonials, and evidence that I didn’t enter the Army knowing of my dependent’s disability, and that I was now unable to fulfill my Commanding Officer’s orders, finally came to fruition. As suddenly as our lives changed the day of his motorcycle accident, they changed again when I got a perfunctory email granting my request for early release with a separation date of just three weeks away. So I out-processed from the Army with record speed, maintaining my honorable discharge status, and we packed up our entire lives and headed back to our home state of Arizona.

Since then, Shawn’s disease has ebbed and flowed, landing him where his is now as a PPMS patient who will only ever continue to decline with no hope for remission. While managing his care, I have earned my double certification as a Radiologic and Computed Tomography Technologist. I have finished my BS degree in Health Care management, and I work full time overnight shifts in emergency room settings. My days and my nights are consumed with the care of my patients and my beloved husband. I am fortunate enough to have a career that is both fulfilling and sufficient for our immediate needs. However, the costs of his care and daily living increase as his disease progresses. He needs continuing adaptations to maintain comfort and function. We need assistive devices that insurance cannot or will not fully fund, like a roll-in shower, a hand-controlled adapted vehicle, lift assist devices for the house, and eventually a fully accessible vehicle he can wheel into in his chair. We have a beautiful life together! We share love and faith, and an adventurous spirit. All we can hope for now is the help we need to maintain his zest for life and for me to continue providing for him as best I can. Thank you all so much!