Waterford — When Matt Swanson showed up at Megan Hahn's doorstep after four years of not seeing each other, she knew that something about him was different but she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

"It was so strange to see him again," she recalled. "He was so different and yet so inherently the same."

The couple, who married in 2009, began dating during their junior year at Palatine High School in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Ill.

While Swanson talked about joining the military it was mostly in passing, she remembers now, and at the time she didn't pay much attention to it.

Swanson was laid back and sweet, she said. When the couple first started dating, Hahn, who goes by Meg, "got really freaked out" because she could tell the relationship was going to get really serious. One day, when Hahn was home sick from school, Swanson came over with a dozen roses and told her he'd wait as long as it took. The night before, she'd told him she wasn't sure about their relationship.

The two dated for about a year in high school. Once they graduated, Swanson enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and Hahn decided she wanted to stay in Illinois and go to college there — so they broke up.

She enrolled at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, and Swanson moved to 29 Palms, a Marines base in California. They stayed in touch and would talk every couple months, Swanson about life in the barracks and Hahn about school.

After two tours in Iraq, Swanson was honorably discharged from the Marines and moved to Colorado to live with his parents. He later decided to move to Connecticut because his close friend who he'd served with was living there. As he made plans to drive across the country, the two talked about making plans for when he drove through Illinois. But Hahn didn't know he was just going to show up at her doorstep. She joked that she remembers thinking at the time that thankfully, she'd just gotten her hair done.

Hahn sensed that something was different about Swanson. She knew about the two tours in Iraq and that he "couldn't come back the same." But at the time she attributed it to the two not having seen each other for four years.

Now married for more than five years, the Swansons live in the Quaker Hill neighborhood of Waterford. When the couple moved to Connecticut, Meg Swanson, now 31, applied to become an officially recognized caregiver through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Since 2011, she's been a full-time caregiver to her husband, who's now medically retired.

Most recently, she became one of 32 individuals who make up the new class of military and veteran caregivers selected for the 2015 Elizabeth Dole Foundation Fellows program. As part of the program, the fellows, who serve two-year terms, act as the voice for caregivers across the country. She is the only Connecticut fellow.

Meg Swanson said she wants to let other caregivers know that they're not alone.

"It can be very isolating," she said, of being a caregiver, "especially if you're not near family or friends."

She emphasized the importance of taking time for yourself, and to never be afraid to ask for help. As a fellow, she hopes to tell her story to raise awareness about the effect of TBI and PTSD on one's day-to-day life.

After reuniting, Matt changed his plans to go to Connecticut and instead moved to Illinois while Meg finished her English degree at NIU. The couple lived in Illinois for five years before moving to Connecticut.

While in Illinois, Matt Swanson moved from job to job, which the couple didn't figure out until later had to do with his diagnosis of Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.

One day they received a notice in the mail that the new head of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Illinois had cleaned house, ridding the department of many of its employees, and that Matt needed to come in for a reevaluation because there were some discrepancies in his file.

When Matt Swanson was initially discharged from the Marines he'd received a low-level diagnosis of PTSD. In his reevaluation, he was diagnosed with a higher level of PTSD than at the outset, and was diagnosed with TBI.

Meg Swanson said her husband felt relieved after his reevaluation because it meant there was a reason he felt the way he did: frequent migraines, memory loss, ringing in his ears. She added that it wasn't a surprise for him.  

Since his diagnosis, the couple has learned to write everything down or put it in their phones, and to continue to educate themselves about TBI.

While in Illinois, Meg Swanson said she found it difficult to help Matt because she wasn't an officially recognized caregiver, meaning she couldn't go into his appointments with him. Since moving to Connecticut and earning that status, life has become much easier. She can go into his appointments with him and hear first-hand what the doctor has to say. She can ask the doctor questions that maybe he forgot to ask, and so on.

Meg Swanson described her experience with the VA as "really great." As new treatments for TBI have become available, she said, the VA will encourage them to make appointments. Matt doesn't take daily medication for his TBI because the medicine he took affected his personality, and didn't do much to relieve the pain that the migraines cause. Instead, she said, he's undergone a round of Botox for his migraines, which has helped. He's also tried different cognitive therapies.

"We're learning as we go," she said.

Matt Swanson is upfront with her, she said, when he's having a bad day. What makes him most as peace, Meg Swanson said, is the couple's two sons, Lucas, 2, and Zeke, nine months. The family enjoys taking road trips together to visit family and friends all over the country.

The couple has a "pretty normal" life, she said. Each day they wake up and make a list of all that they need to do for the day, whether it's chores around the house or taking her husband to his appointments. Currently, the two have been busy remodeling their house.

During their time together, Meg said there's never been a question of whether "I could handle (his diagnosis) or whether we could handle it together because we're a team."

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: @JuliaSBergman