I first used ‘Gather My Crew’ in 2019 when I accessed gender affirming surgery and my parents were still struggling to come to terms with my gender identity.
I was set to stay with them post surgery, but was very anxious about them not coping with it and making my recovery a distressing experience.
One of my beautiful friends had come across the app before and suggested I use it to gather my support crew along with setting up a fb group for me, which I used for posting updates.
My wonderful friendship group then used the GMC website to communicate who was visiting and who was bringing me meals etc.
It ended up being such an empowering tool in that my parents got to see my surgery being celebrated and came to understand exactly how life changing it was for me.
More recently, I was hit by a car whilst cycling and wound up in a rehab hospital for a month.
I remembered how helpful ‘Gather My Crew’ had been, so I set it up with the hospital visiting hours so people could organise when to visit me, especially given the hospital’s post-covid strict rules of only two visitors a day within very specific hours.
Using the app took the mental and emotional load off me and enabled friends who didn’t necessarily know each other to communicate easily.
I am so grateful to have been able to use GMC for two quite different situations – one a planned surgery recovery and the other an unexpected traumatic event.
