Is this a true story?

Yes. Leanne Watson is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.

What organisation produced this?

Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.

What did Leanne Watson learn from this experience?

Leanne's pragmatism and her husband's willingness to treat her diagnosis as something that happened to both of them protected her from despair during the slow progression of her condition.

What would Leanne Watson want listeners to know?

People in wheelchairs want to be spoken to directly, asked if they need help rather than assumed to need it, and treated with the same natural courtesy you would show anyone else.

What helped Leanne Watson most along the way?

Even when you feel dejected or dispirited, reaching out to one community group can surprise you with how willing people are to make small changes to include you.

What would Leanne Watson tell someone going through something similar?

Most of the comments strangers make to Leanne about her disability come from a place of meaning well, but they reinforce her sense of being different and other rather than accepted as part of the community.

What topics does this episode cover?

This conversation includes a childhood in melbourne suburbs, meeting gary in year 11, building a life together, the body starts changing, the diagnosis arrives and the slow architecture of loss.

Leanne Watson · 50 min

A Life in Three Acts with Muscular Dystrophy

Leanne Watson's candid account of living with limb girdle muscular dystrophy, navigating a progressive diagnosis with pragmatism, humour, and an unshakeable network of love, challenges every assumption about what it means to thrive with disability.

Rebuilding after it all fell apart Living with a disability or chronic illness Caring for someone else+3

Hear this story

Overview

Leanne Watson was 42 when she got the diagnosis that would reshape her life: limb girdle muscular dystrophy, a progressive neuromuscular disorder that slowly takes away muscle function. For years before that, she had sought answers. Doctors dismissed her weight loss around her hips and thighs as normal aging, suggested she hit the gym, even made her parade in front of them in her underwear. A newly qualified GP finally took her seriously, ordered the right blood tests, and within weeks Leanne had her answer. What followed was nearly two decades of incremental loss: first high heels became impossible, then getting off a toilet seat, then each small shift stacked on top of the last.

What protected Leanne from despair was pragmatism and her husband Gary's refusal to treat her diagnosis as hers alone. He reframed it as something that happened to both of them. He identified that her energy was best spent on things that would bring her joy, not on housework. He showed up every single day. Her children rallied. Friends adapted. And Leanne did something crucial: she reached out to community. She joined a book club, connected with Women with Disabilities Victoria, hosted a weekly radio show, and now runs a podcast about muscular dystrophy from home while she still can.

What emerged from all this is a clear-eyed account of what inclusion actually looks like and what it doesn't. A cafe worker who made eye contact with Leanne first, asked her order directly, handed her the change naturally. Strangers in pearls who offered unsolicited prayers. Men who cracked jokes about wheelchair speed limits, meaning well but reinforcing her otherness. Leanne's message is direct: treat disabled people like you'd treat anyone else. Ask if they need help instead of assuming. And if you're struggling with isolation or despair, make one phone call to a community group. You'll be surprised how willing people are to make space for you.

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