When social justice leader Tanya Hosch was diagnosed with Charcot foot during the height of the COVID pandemic, it marked the beginning of a life-altering ordeal. Charcot foot, a severe complication of diabetes where the bones soften and collapse, often leaves individuals facing difficult choices. For Tanya, it was the start of a grueling journey:
“I got a terrible shock when this all came about… I was the sort of person that wasn’t going to just say, yeah, let’s cut it off. I wanted to try to save my leg.”
She spent nearly three years undergoing intense procedures, relying on knee scooters, wheelchairs, and weekly leg casts to reconstruct her foot. Yet, just as she reached the end of that process, Charcot developed in her ankle. Faced with another surgery that would leave her right leg significantly shorter than her left, Tanya made a definitive choice:
“Amputation at some point is probably inevitable. I thought about the realities of having one leg shorter than another and never being able to walk on the beach again without shoes on… So I said to my surgeon, I think it’s time that we amputate. I took a weekend to make the decision, told her on the Monday, and had the amputation on the Friday.”
Her diagnosis exposed how poorly managed her diabetes had been, driven by a demanding career and a lack of tailored education:
“It was clear that I had not been managing my diabetes well… Up until that point I was taking my medication, but I wasn’t really doing much else. For the past fifteen years, I’ve only had pretty stressful jobs and stress definitely adds to your blood sugar… I had no idea.”
The immediate aftermath of the amputation proved to be a major physical and emotional shock:
“I felt like I’d been hit with a truck. I think I was quite weepy and emotional. I started having phantom pain… so much so that it was waking me up in the middle of the night.”
The emotional toll was compounded when post-surgery conversations with medical staff suddenly shifted from when she would receive a prosthetic to if she would be suitable for one. Fearing she might lose the chance to walk again, Tanya threw herself into her rehabilitation with fierce determination:
“I was taking responsibility and I was working hard because I still had those words of ‘if I get a prosthetic’ ringing in my ears, and I didn’t want to risk not being able to do that… I distantly remember getting into the car to go home after that sort of just over two week hospital stay, and I distinctly remember thinking, I feel stronger now than I did before I went in for the amputation.”
Just two weeks after surgery, Tanya demonstrated that resolve on a national stage. As a key advocate for constitutional recognition, she stood at the launch of the Voice to Parliament referendum campaign in Adelaide—just one day after being discharged from hospital:
“I’d been working as part of the movement towards this for twelve years, and it meant a lot to me… I thought that what I had just gone through was a demonstration of why the Voice has so much potential to really improve the position of First Nations people. So I thought, well, I’ve got an opportunity to use my story in lieu of just using the statistics.”
Addressing the crowd, she shared her deeply personal reality directly from the stage:
“A little over two weeks ago, I had my lower right leg amputated. And so having left hospital only yesterday, I’m standing here on one leg today… I’m not without privilege and access to services, but still, the service design let me down. I know that if we already had a permanent voice in place, there would be people around that table that understand my story, my experience, and what could make things better and different for me and for people like me.”
Reflecting on the broader impact of diabetes and amputations among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, Tanya highlighted systemic barriers, discrimination, and health system fatigue:
“Constantly sort of feeling judged and told that you’ve got to change something… they just get on top of you and it can be really, really difficult… For First Nations people who are needing to rely on systems that are not easily accessible or made to fit their circumstances well, I can see why it’s so much more challenging to get to the other end of some of these really challenging chronic conditions.”
A few years later, Tanya continues to navigate the complex emotional and physical adjustments of life as an amputee, marked by lingering grief and deep fatigue:
“Every so often there are just moments where I feel like this is just too hard. I’m so exhausted. I can’t dress the way I want to dress, I can’t wear the shoes I want to wear… I’m still grieving my leg… I think it’ll be a really long time before it feels like my normal.”
However, a fall on a rainy street in Melbourne underscored the ongoing vulnerability that comes with her new reality:
“I slipped, fell flat on my back… lying there in the rain. And in that moment felt entirely vulnerable, incredibly scared… Trying to explain to people, no, you can’t actually just lift me, it’s not going to work like that… But I managed it, and one fall in two years is pretty good.”
When offering advice to others facing a similar path, Tanya emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy and accepting support:
“If you’re aware of what it is that might help you as you’re navigating the process, ask someone for it… Most people are really well meaning and they want to help, they just don’t know what to do… Allowing myself a time to be okay with allowing people to help me, and taking my time… rather than if I’d stuck to the schedule that other people decided for me was the right pace.”
