New Mexico’s health care crisis is forcing military personnel to decline assignments
By Natalie Robbins / Journal Staff Writer
About a year after Christine Calhoun and her family moved to Cannon Air Force Base, her 5-year-old son woke up from a nap and didn’t remember her.
“It was horrifying,” Calhoun said.
In Clovis, the closest city to Cannon, there are no pediatric neurologists. That night, Calhoun and her husband, a senior master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, drove two hours to Amarillo, Texas, and slept in shifts at a hotel, making sure their son stayed awake for his electroencephalogram the next morning. After he was examined at a hospital, the Calhouns returned to New Mexico from what would be the first of many trips to Texas over the next few years.
“We went to the hospital here (in Clovis) and they literally were like, there is not much we can do,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun’s son, now 9, was diagnosed with migraines with aura, a type of headache that can cause sensory or cognitive disturbances like blind spots, numbness or amnesia. His mother regularly takes a day off from her job as a middle school special education teacher to make the four-hour round trip to Texas so her son can see his doctor or get a medication refill. Because of a state law, he can’t see his doctor via telehealth.
(Originally published by Albuquerque Journal, September 21, 2025)