I bought a reacher grabber seventeen months ago for one reason. My surgeon told me not to bend past a right angle, and the newspaper lands on the porch boards at five forty every morning whether I am ready or not. I am Hal Brockman, seventy-four, thirty-one years on a county mail route, and I live in a one-story brick ranch outside Tupelo, Mississippi, with three steps up from the carport to the kitchen door. The FitPlus PowerGrip T9 was the first thing I bought after the surgery that I did not have to talk myself into.
Here is what surprised me. The loaner walker went back to the hospital equipment closet after six weeks. The cane comes and goes. The FitPlus reacher has sat beside my recliner since that spring and it earns the spot most days of the week. Ten reasons it protects a new hip, in the order I ran into them, and one thing I would leave on the shelf.
The tool that stayed out of the shed for seventeen months
FitPlus PowerGrip T9. Foldable, wide jaw, rubberized ends with a magnet on one side. The one I keep beside the recliner, not in the drawer.
Amazon Check today's price on Amazon →You stop bending past a right angle for the small stuff
Hip precautions are simple on paper and awkward in a house. No bending past a right angle, no crossing your legs. The clinic nurse drew me a picture of that right angle and it did not help much at seven in the morning when a spoon landed on the kitchen floor. In those first six weeks the FitPlus took every one of those reaches for me. I did not have to call Doris away from the stove to pick up a piece of cutlery, and I did not spend the rest of the morning wondering whether I had just undone something.
The morning paper comes up without a squat
The newspaper lands on the porch boards at ankle height. Before the surgery that was a squat. After the surgery it was a decision I had to think through every single time. With the wide jaw of the FitPlus I pinch the folded paper, lift it, and I am back inside before the coffee finishes. Seventeen months on, I have not once knelt on those boards. Small thing. It is also the first thing that happens to me every day, so it sets the tone for the rest of it.
Dropped keys and coins come back without a lunge
There is a magnet on one end of the FitPlus, and it is the part I did not expect to use. Keys off the carport concrete. A coin that rolled under the recliner. Coins are the one thing the magnet does not always take, so the rubberized ends finish the job. Either way I am not folding myself in half at the bottom of my own driveway at six in the morning. My hands are stiff in the mornings anyway, and that magnet has saved me more than one trip back inside for the truck keys.
Laundry out of the dryer stops being a floor exercise
The dryer drum sits low, and the small pieces always work their way to the back of it. Reaching in is a bend, and a bend without support is exactly what my physical therapist kept warning me off. I keep the FitPlus on the counter beside the machine, fish the socks and dish towels out, and the basket stays at waist height. The laundry gets done without turning into a floor exercise. Doris still carries the heavy basket up the hall. I have learned to let her.
Low cabinet shelves stop being off-limits
The good saucepan lives on the bottom shelf of the island. So does the big mixing bowl Doris uses for cornbread. With the reacher I take the handle and bring it up to counter height instead of crouching for it. It sounds like a small thing to anybody who has not had a hip done. It is the difference between cooking supper on a Tuesday and asking somebody else to cook supper, and I got tired of asking.
One steady reach instead of three wobbly ones
Here is what nobody tells you about balance. It is worse when you are tired, worse in the dark, and worse on gravel. A reacher lets you keep both feet planted and your weight over your heels while you take what you came for. On the evenings when I am worn down, I wobble a good deal less than I did the first few months. That is not the tool doing something medical. It is the tool keeping me from doing something foolish.
The wide jaw holds more than you would expect
A rolled sock off the bedroom floor. A pill bottle on the nightstand. The remote that slid under the chair again. The jaw on the FitPlus is wide and the rubberized ends do not let go of a smooth surface. I have picked up a coffee mug and a pair of garden gloves with the same tool on the same afternoon, and neither one slipped. I would not try it with anything hot and full, and I would not try it with anything heavy.
It folds flat behind the truck seat
The FitPlus folds and the listing puts it at 9.52 ounces. Mine stays folded behind the front seat of the pickup, so a stop at the pharmacy or the feed store on Wednesday does not leave me reaching down into a footwell. Anything that travels with me has to be light and it has to lie flat. This one is both, and I never think about it until I need it, which is about the highest praise I can give a piece of gear.
It lives where you actually sit
A tool in a drawer is a tool you will not use. That is the whole lesson of my shed. Mine sits on the floor beside the recliner with the jaw up, close enough that I can take it without leaning out of the chair. That is the only reason the thing got used every day for seventeen months while other gear went out to the shed. Put it where you sit, not where you store things.
It takes one worry off Doris
Doris is seventy-two and she does not hover, but I have seen her look over when I start to lean toward something on the floor. When the reacher is already in my hand she goes back to her book. I will say plainly that is worth more to me than the tool itself, and it is the reason I keep telling men at the feed store to buy one before they think they need it.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the bundled hip kit. A kit puts a reacher, a sock aid and a long shoehorn in one box, and the sock aid is the part most people use twice and then put away. I never owned one. For the first six weeks Doris helped me with my socks, and after that I managed fine sitting on the edge of the bed. If I were starting over I would buy the FitPlus reacher by itself and put my attention on a shower chair, which I have used every single day since. Ask your doctor or your physical therapist what your own precautions are before you buy anything, because mine were not yours.
Seventeen months on, the FitPlus still sits beside my recliner, and I have not once knelt on the porch boards for a newspaper.
Buy it before you think you need it
FitPlus PowerGrip T9. Foldable, wide jaw, rubberized ends, a magnet on one end. Mine has been in daily use since the spring of my surgery.
Amazon See today's price on Amazon →