Wheelchair car for daughter of Leukaemia patient

Hi, my name is Leanne and I am desperately seeking the assistance of caring, kind hearted souls to help me purchase a second-hand wheelchair accessible vehicle to be able to transport my disabled daughter, especially to visit her dad who is fighting for his life in hospital with Leukaemia and for her own hospital appointments.


Aleacia is a 14 year old girl who was born with an extremely rare, degenerative disease of the Motor Neurons called Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia. HSP usually only affects the Upper Motor Neurons but sadly Aleacia has both Upper Motor Neuron and Lower Motor Neuron involvement, this affects her whole body.


Aleacia has had symptoms since birth and used a manual wheelchair from age 4  as she has never been able to walk independently. As her disease has progressed, she even lost the ability to weight bear to help with transfers. Aleacia has been using a power wheelchair since she was 9. This has given her so much freedom and independence but has given us challenges with transporting her.


For the past 10 years I have been physically lifting Aleacia into and out of our now 14-year-old (unmodified) Kia Grand Carnival. We would then drive her wheelchair up a folding portable ramp into the boot. This has never been ideal and has caused injuries to my knee and to my back. Now that she is older and her disease has progressed Aleacia needs supportive seating to keep her safe. This is no longer possible in our car.



As Aleacia has grown (and I’ve aged) it’s become harder for me to lift her in and out of the car into her wheelchair. Once she reached 58kg I learnt how to use a slide board but again this was never ideal as Aleacia has no ability to assist in the transfer and there was a high risk of the board falling during the transfer. With my knee and back injuries, I was really struggling.

This year Aleacia had urgent scoliosis surgery and spent 6 weeks in hospital recovering and doing intensive rehab. Unfortunately, due to the surgery, stiffness from the rods in her back and pain, slide boarding her is no longer an option. This means that I am unable to transport her anywhere. She has missed several hospital appointments now because we cannot afford a taxi that distance and public transport Is out of the question as it is too painful for Aleacia to spend any longer than a couple of hours in her wheelchair. Not to mention the risk of Covid-19.


I am a proud woman and I hate asking for help, but our situation is dire.

Last year Aleacia’s dad, John snr was diagnosed with Leukaemia and his only chance of survival was a Stem Cell Transplant. He was admitted to the Olivia Newton John Cancer and Wellness Centre while Aleacia was still an inpatient at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Our 16-year-old son John jr selflessly volunteered to be his dad’s Stem Cell donor. This procedure was also done at the Royal Children’s Hospital. My life revolved around staying by Aleacia’s side at the RCH, being there for my son while he endured the twice daily injections, their side effects and the ensuing 8 hour Apheresis to harvest his stem cells and visiting my husband at the ONJ Centre.


My husband is still fighting for his life in the ONJ Centre, it is an extremely difficult time for our family.  Aleacia hasn’t seen her dad since June 7th. Our income has been reduced to Centrelink payments and even if we were able to get a loan to purchase an accessible car, we would be unable to pay it off. We have no Superannuation to access to help us purchase a vehicle (thanks to his former employer not paying it) and the NDIS will only help with the modifications of a vehicle that is up to 3 years old, having only travelled up to 45,000km. This is not possible for us to achieve, so all I am hoping to do is be able to afford a reliable, already modified vehicle.