The inciting incident
Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Cass and I am the founder of H4H. In 2013 I became mysteriously ill - the doctors had no idea what was wrong with me, and my health continued to deteriorate. I was forced to leave my job and social life and eventually became completely housebound.
Fast forward five years to Christmas morning. I sat in my living room, surrounded by decorations I had been too ill to help hang, peeling the paper off my present from my wife. She got me a VR helmet in the hopes that I might lay in bed and be off on a deep water dive, or lounging on the beach, or floating in space - anything but staring at my ceiling like I had been doing for years on end. What neither of us realised at the time was that this was a turning point in my recovery.
VR became a distraction from the pain I lived with every day. It became a way for me to sit up for longer periods of time and eventually, a way for me to safely start moving my muscles again. It gave me something to look forward to each day, a way for me to escape my four walls. And with movement came gradual progress towards recovery.
Today I still need regular rests, and sometimes my illness still has me stuck in bed for extended periods. I still use my wheelchair, and I’m still sick. But I have my independence and a quality of life that was unthinkable for so many years. VR has been such a huge part of that recovery and I recognise what a privilege it is to have the funds to be able to access it. Now that I am well enough, I have started H4H to ensure that others can have the same tools. Recovery should never be about what you can afford.