Mid-2019 I had an illness, with protracted time in hospital. I lost a lot of muscle mass and became quite weak.

It really is a struggle to just do those little things every day and get on with your recovery, while you’re doing more important things like trying to learn to walk again. But getting to the toilet and back, the shower and back, getting dressed and re-dressed each time becomes a real hassle, and you do find yourself over-stretching and hurting yourself because you haven’t got the right gear. This was before I discovered Recovawear.

Then in January of this year, I had an accident falling over a power cord, getting tangled in it in a small room and had a very awkward fall where I twisted to avoid hitting my head and broke both the bones in my right ankle. I more or less twisted my foot off. The two broken bones came apart and went down the sides of the ankle and it had to be bolted back together.

I went back to hospital for a two-week review, and one of the main surgical wounds had broken down and was badly infected - and that set about a really long period of recovery.

Little things like lying in bed in hospital – every thing is in the wrong place, when you can’t move your foot – when the nurse alarm falls on the floor how do you get it? The charging socket for your phone, where is it? Its way back there, and you’ve got stuff in bags and every time the nurses come in they push the bags against the wall, and every time I need something I’m trying to lift a bag up from far behind me while I cant move my foot. Long story short, I ended up getting tendinosis in both my shoulders. 

I came out of hospital from treating the surgical wound unable to lift my hands above my head and not weight bearing because of my ankle. I didn’t need Recovawear then for my ankle, I needed it for my upper half because of the collateral damage from the hospital stay.

I used the T-shirt and the polo and it’s been really helpful. I don’t need it as much now but I still really like wearing it because its good quality stuff.

Perfect Hospital Gift

I’ve had lots of time in and out of hospital through the years. I think the most effective way to get the concept of Recovawear clothing across to people isn’t through the surgeons or nurses – I think it would be an ideal gift in addition to, or instead of, flowers. If you can make someone’s life a lot easier in hospital then do it. 

And it will help them prevent re-injury – its one thing to have an agonisingly sore broken ankle and be worrying about that, its another thing to not be able to be independent or able to reach for things for months.

Recovawear Helped Me With Independence, Avoiding Pain and Re-injury

So Recovawear wouldn’t solve all your problems but at least when you’re getting into the tricky zone where you’re starting to get collateral damage, it really helps you get by. Your main carers don’t have time to look after that stuff.

After six months of physio my ankle is coming good, and my shoulders have healed. Recovawear really helped my recovery speed as I think I would have kept aggravating my shoulders. I couldn’t lift my arms above my head for ages. It’s a common injury and you feel it so much in every day life, it’s so easy to aggravate it. I would have to ask for assistance if I wasn’t wearing my Recovawear. Any day I had it on, I could be completely independent. 

If I didn’t know about it, I would ask for assistance and just struggle on continuing with the irritating, annoying way of doing things because you don’t necessarily know there’s a better way. When you get out of hospital they say ‘you can put your own clothes on now’ and there’s no real guidance, there’s definitely a gap in education. Occasionally an OT or physio might help you with how to get dressed for certain injuries, if you ask, but its never been offered to me. 

Recovawear relieved me of a lot of awkward moments and the potential to injure myself again, and just gave me a lot of independence during my recovery.

I’ve had two scenarios in the space of a year – before I knew about Recovawear and after - and the recovery with Recovawear has been a lot more manageable and a lot less fearful of re-injury. The first time, I was so fearful of having a fall while getting dressed and I had to be so careful and it took so long, but during my second injury I don’t have to get all tangled in things and stretch my way through them and its been so much more comfortable and reassuring, and its just quicker.

In the second instance, I understood the injury, I knew it would take a long time, but as to the tedious nature of how long it goes on for and how much it frustrates you and can get you down, I had no idea what I was in for. This was very painful and slow and there was a lot of discomfort with a wound that had to be changed every two days for months.

As a type 1 diabetic since childhood, a 12 cm long, 2 cm wide wound on the least fleshy part of your ankle means the threat of amputation. So I was well aware of the challenges of this and I had to go to the GP every two days to get it dressed - and that meant I had to put on respectable clothes each time, so dressing was an issue there – I did wear and promote my Recovawear there! 

I Recommend It to Everywhere I Go

I absolutely recommend the product everywhere I go. I get a lot of interesting reactions about what a good idea it is and I think anyone who’s recovered from an injury really does relate to it. If it was available in hospital gift shops and on social media as a gift idea for someone who’s convalescing in hospital I reckon that’s ideal.

I usually wear jeans and T-shirts and polo or business shirts. I’m not an overly formal guy. I’m going to buy some more Recovawear, I’ll get it through the website. I normally buy things online, that’s my normal process.

When I tell people about Recovawear I say, “I’ve been using this amazing clothing line, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Its self-assembling, its got magnets and Velcro and it just falls open and you can stand in it and pull it up, or slide it over your head with one hand and you just line up the Velcro with one hand and it closes itself up. It’s so easy and its good quality stuff too. It looks decent, it doesn’t look like hospital wear, its made a big difference, you should try it”.

Most people say “that sounds like a really good idea” – some people ask if its expensive and I say “its priced like normal clothing but it’s a hell of a lot easier to put on and it looks decent, so there’s nothing to stop you using it.”