TX Active aims to encourage transplant recipients to get back into movement post-transplant - and feel good while doing it.
Each year in Australia, up to 300 lung and heart transplant recipients embark on rehabilitation programs.
While the process of receiving a transplant is an enormous undertaking, life afterwards can also be tough, with many not able to be physically active in the years leading up to their transplants.
One of those Australians is Jade Mitchell. After dealing with cystic fibrosis from birth, she had a double lung transplant in 2018 and had to overcome significant hurdles post-operation.
“Managing my health became a full-time job and I was eventually listed for a transplant at age 40,” Mitchell tells Body+Soul.
“My body wasn’t bouncing back like it used to. A two-week hospital admission used to help me gain back the percentage of lung function I had lost due to a cold or virus, but eight weeks in the hospital and a week out before needing more antibiotics wasn’t sustainable.”
The operation however wasn’t a magic fix. She experienced acute rejection that saw her spend 10 days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and then a year later, attracted a virus that caused Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), leaving her in a coma for three weeks, needing to spend 40 days in ICU and six months in rehabilitation.
It was during this time in rehab that she had the idea for her activewear brand, TX Active.
“The transplant rehab gym seems quite daunting. I started, like many with a walking frame on oxygen but was soon wearing activewear and treating rehab as personal training sessions,” Mitchell explains.
“I noticed the others in the gym were wearing items not typically suitable for a workout. The fact I wore activewear separated me from some of the other transplant recipients. I was mistaken for a trainer or person in the gym to help others, not as a patient.”
One of the reasons for this is that transplant recipients may have endured periods of unemployment or underemployment, leaving them without spare income to spend on activewear.
“People who have had an organ transplant have been terminally ill, often for a long time. I decided I wanted to do something positive for people in rehabilitation to motivate them for their new active life.”
From there, TX Active was born. For every piece of apparel sold, Mitchell gifts equivalent apparel to transplant recipients, to "help them feel great on their journey to fitness".
Six months after launching, Transplant Australia contacted the brand to ask if they would be interested in helping design and manufacture the Australian team parade uniforms for the World Transplant Games that were held in Perth in April 2023. It was this that prompted her to compete in the games herself.
“Pre-transplant, having a goal like this was something I had not been able to achieve. For the first time in decades, I was making gains, regularly training with fewer physical setbacks and had a clear and obtainable goal to compete.”
Mitchell says she now feels fantastic and runs the label alongside heart transplant recipient Petra Brosch, who she met while she was in the ICU.
Brosch had a heart attack while training for a half marathon and died three times during her first night in ICU.
“We met in the rehab gym. I introduced myself to Petra and told her I had seen her in ICU and how happy I was for her that she was now up in the gym. I loved the fight she showed and we have been friends ever since.”
In the years since the 2021 launch, the brand has gone from strength to strength, with customers who make a purchase knowing they will make a difference in someone else’s life.
“For the customers who purchase TX Active, I want them to look and feel fantastic with an added sense of pride that their purchase has facilitated a gift to a stranger,” Mitchell says.
“And when people wear TX Active as a transplant recipient I want them to feel motivated, prepared and strong. I want them to be able to look forward to the life ahead of them where they can enjoy exercise and want to move their bodies more.”
