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In 2021, a rare autoimmune disease attacked then-14-year-old Bella Chambasis\u2019s organs, leaving her hospitalized for nearly a year and requiring a kidney transplant.
\nChambasis also suffered a debilitating stroke \u2014 only one of several major challenges for her family over the years
\nBut the teen persevered and graduated with honors in Connecticut last week: \u201cNever let anyone tell you what you can or can\u2019t do\u201d
\nA roar of applause and cheers echoed through Connecticut\u2019s East Haven High School\u2019s football stadium last week as 18-year-old Bella Chambasis slowly made her way across the mid-field stage \u2014 flanked by her mom and a school staff member \u2014 to receive her diploma.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard everyone screaming at first,\u201d recalls Chambasis. \u201cBut then I stopped hearing anything because I was so focused on getting across the stage and making it to the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
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For most teenagers, graduating from high school is a rite of passage that marks one of their first steps into adulthood.<\/p>\n
For Chambasis \u2014 who has endured more hardship and loss than most of us face in a lifetime \u2014 those eight steps she took across the stage at her ceremony on Thursday, June 12, were the culmination of years\u2019 worth of hard work and the fulfillment of a vow she made shortly after emerging from a coma in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t just want to be remembered as \u2018the girl in the wheelchair,\u2019 \u201d says the 18-year-old honors student when asked why it was so important for her to receive her diploma while standing on her own two feet. \u201cI wanted everyone there to remember me as \u2018Bella, the girl who overcame kidney failure and survived.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
The story behind Chambasis\u2019 moment of triumph is a dark one, tracing back to April 2009. That\u2019s when the family\u2019s babysitter murdered her big sister, Arianna, who was 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very horrific time for us, something none of us will ever get over,\u201d says Deann Hurley, Chambasis\u2019 mom.<\/p>\n
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Two years later, her father \u2014 Jorge \u2014 was killed in a motorcycle accident. \u201cIt was like one blow after another,\u201d Hurley says. \u201cWe haven\u2019t really been dealt the best deck of cards.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Life slowly returned to normal during the next decade. But in January 2021, Hurley watched as her usually spunky youngest daughter began experiencing nose bleeds and prolonged bouts of lethargy.<\/p>\n
An urgent care doctor told Chambasis to put Vaseline in her nose, then sent her on her home. But two days after that, she could barely stand up and began having difficulty breathing.<\/p>\n
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Hurley rushed her to a local hospital and was quickly told, \u201cYour daughter\u2019s very sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chambasis was intubated to help her breathe and, because she was so anemic, had more than a dozen blood transfusions.<\/p>\n
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Tests soon revealed that she was suffering from a rare autoimmune disorder known as ANCA-associated vasculitis, which causes inflammation of blood vessels throughout the body. Before long, her kidneys failed, and she was put on dialysis.<\/p>\n
An initially promising recovery masked a looming problem: Two months later, just as Chambasis was preparing to leave the hospital, she suffered a serious stroke and spent the next month in a coma.<\/p>\n
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By that April, doctors began to brace Hurley for the possibility that her daughter might never awaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey began having quality of life conversations with me, explaining how they could stop her dialysis and just let her renal functions shut down,\u201d Hurley says. \u201cAll I could think was, \u2018I\u2019m not going to lose two daughters in the month of April.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
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Instead, she kept a constant vigil by Chambasis\u2019 hospital bed, playing Bruno Mars and Keyshia Cole tunes for her nonstop.<\/p>\n
And then one afternoon about a month into the coma, in the middle of Billie Eilish\u2019s song \u201cCopycat,\u201d Hurley noticed that her daughter\u2019s lips were moving. \u201cShe was lip-syncing the song word for word,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about her memories from that period, Chambasis says, simply: \u201cI\u2019ve always loved music and have always learned lyrics to songs really fast. And when I like a song, I always sing it no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took another five months before she was strong enough to be released from the hospital. Her left side had been severely weakened by the stroke and she used a wheelchair to move. \u201cEven just sitting up,\u201d Hurley says, \u201cyou could see the pain in her face.\u201d<\/p>\n
During this period, the joy of realizing she\u2019d survived was soon tempered by questions of what her life was going to look like in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I finally did come back, I kept asking myself, \u2018Why is all this happening to me?\u2019 \u201d Chambasis says.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t wait around for an answer. Instead, she threw herself into her schoolwork, determined to catch up on all the classes she missed during the nine months total that she spent in the hospital in order to graduate on time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very hard on myself when I need to get something done,\u201d she says. \u201cSo when I went back to school I did everything I could, always coming home and working into the night and going to summer school.\u201d<\/p>\n
In between the numerous surgeries that followed, including a kidney transplant in 2023, Chambasis was determined to one day walk at her graduation.<\/p>\n
And last August when she began twice-a-week physical therapy, the first thing she told her therapist was: \u201cI want to walk across the stage to get my high school diploma.\u201d Before long, she was spending countless hours practicing making her way across a simulated stage her therapists had set up for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe needed a lot of assistance at first, especially in moving her left leg,\u201d says Jadean Hoff, a physical therapist at Gaylord Specialty Healthcare, who describes Chambasis as one of the \u201cmost optimistic and hardworking patients\u201d she\u2019s ever worked with.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe always comes in with a smile, even when she\u2019s having a crappy day \u2014 and she keeps going until she almost drops,\u201d Hoff says.<\/p>\n
The hard work paid off, says Chambasis, who wants to eventually attend medical school and focus on pediatric medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack when I was in the hospital, I heard a lot about all the things I\u2019d probably never be able to do again,\u201d she says. \u201cBut what I learned is: Never let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do. Just keep a good mindset, stay positive and there\u2019s nothing you can\u2019t accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2021, a rare autoimmune disease attacked then-14-year-old Bella Chambasis\u2019s organs, leaving her hospitalized for nearly a year and requiring a kidney transplant. Chambasis also suffered a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33359,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33358","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n