Hospital stay inspires child to start superhero gowns drive
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It makes people so much braver when hospitalized and makes them feel way more comfortable and better and special.”
Jax Glover, 8-year-old charity drive organizer
Donations
Those people interested in contributing to Jaxson Glover’s hospital gowns drive can do so online. Each gown costs $25. www.bravegowns.com/products/jax-pch
Jax Glover is in many ways a typical 8-year-old boy, full of energy and fun, liking puzzles and hockey, friends with some kids and annoyed by others.
But Jax’s health is not typical. He has had a suite of medical issues since birth that continue until now, chief among them epilepsy and asthma. This year he has attended school just 13 of 46 days.
He is also different in another manner: generous enough to want to help other kids trying like he has to be brave while facing medical procedures or hospital stays.
That led Jax to initiate a drive to collect something that helped him: fun superhero hospital gowns. Jax hopes to collect at least 500 of them by Thanksgiving time and distribute them over the holidays at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where Jax recently completed a stay.
The gown brings out the brave in Jax, who has been wearing the same gown at the hospital since he was 3 or 4.
“That’s literally, exactly what it does for me,” he said.
His mom, Danielle Landau, confirms that.
“It really did,” she said. “I brought it when he was hospitalized. I brought it with us, and it really made a huge difference. He was like, ‘Can I put this on right now?’ [He] felt a lot better.”
The gowns come from Brave Gowns, a California company started by Summer Germann, a woman who lost her own younger brother to cancer. It also makes masks, pillowcases and hooded blankets.
The gown offerings go beyond superheroes to sports jerseys, cartoon characters, animals and other artwork. Some can be customized. They are designed to be comfortable and make accessing the patient’s body easier for treatment.
Jax’s journey began shortly after birth. He first started having problems at 4 months and was diagnosed with epilepsy at a little more than a year of age.
The family was living in Sierra Vista with Landau working as an agent for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and her husband and Jax’s father, Robert Glover, working with border patrol. Landau eventually gave up her job to help address Jax’s medical issues.
His particular epilepsy causes complex partial seizures, in which he more “zones out” than anything, though sometimes he shakes, Landau said. It lasts about 30 seconds or a minute.
It also can be followed by what Jax describes as behavior issues. That happens in what is known as the postictal state, from right after seizure until the brain returns to baseline. Landau said it manifests in two ways: either angry outbursts or hyperactivity.
As he has grown older, Jax is more prone to recognize when a seizure is coming, but it’s too late to do anything about it. Typically, he may have one or two a week, Landau said.
Going with that activity is anxiety, another of Jax’s medical conditions. That also tends to put him into cycles with the epilepsy.
“It (seizure) happened when he was in school, and that’s led to a severe anxiety,” Landau said. “Now his seizures are triggered by anxiety. So it’s kind of like a circular thing. He has a seizure, gets anxiety. Anxiety triggers the seizure.”
The number of seizures recently led to his most recent hospital stay a couple weeks back, but it often is not the epilepsy that puts him in the hospital. His asthma leaves him chronically ill. He does not go many days without getting sick again.
Questions and comments from his nurses about the gown got Jax to thinking about starting some collection drive. The family has been getting the word out through neighborhood flyers and social media posts.
Thus far the family has collected about 300 gowns through a link on the Brave Gowns website. The company plans to ship them all to the family at once when the drive is done.
“It makes people so much braver when hospitalized and makes them feel way more comfortable and better and special,” Jax said. “Also, I just care for them.”
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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