Military Spouse of the Day: Chrissy Bender

Introducing Chrissy Bender, a Navy wife for 21 years, currently stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.  What she loves the most about military life has been meeting some of her best friends in the world.  What she hates the most is saying good-bye.

Chrissy was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer in August of 2014.  She was 40 years old, and her children were 18, 16, and 5.  She was tasked with the hard job of telling her family and close friends that the doctors gave her three to five years to live.  At first, they all cried, and for about two weeks, she was depressed.  She then decided to fight, naming her tumors Joffrey’s Army.  She went from 12 tumors to four, and now she has six.  Rest assured, she’s still fighting.

Her advice to special needs families is to never stop fighting and that the doctors don’t know everything.  It’s also okay to cry it out when you need to.

The Military Special Needs Network honors and salutes Chrissy Bender as the Military Spouse of the Day! We thank you for being such a wonderful military spouse and an amazing advocate.