High school. Yep, those two words make us cringe, too! Whether you were prom queen or a self-proclaimed “geek”, it certainly isn’t an easy time for anyone. Now, imagine if your first day of freshman year included the added pressure of walking through the doors with a new pair of legs.

Meet Tasnim Rahman, a New York teen who is bravely facing that very scenario.

Just last year, Tasnim felt like she may have been coming down the flu. She had those requisite aches and pains, but it suddenly transformed into something much worse.

The minute the gal realized something was very wrong, she made a split-second decision that ended up saving her life. Once she started experiencing severe symptoms, like having trouble breathing, the 14-year-old got herself in a taxi and went straight to the emergency room. There, doctors rushed her to the intensive care unit, where she fought for her life.

You see, young Tasnim had fallen ill with something much more serious than the common flu. She had actually contracted a very rare bacterial infection that would ultimately end up claiming each of her legs. When Tasnim awoke in the ICU, she had no memory of anything after getting into the cab. She was also paralyzed, completely unable to move.

In an interview with local news station Fox 5, the teenager recalls what it was like to wake up in a hospital room in this devastating state. “At the beginning, it was really hard,” Tasnim remembers. “I couldn’t move my legs, my hands, or anything.”

A teen encounters yet another life change

Believe it or not, Tasnim fell ill with the infection right after she and her family immigrated to New York from Bangladesh. The Rahman family had only been living in the United States for a total of five short months before one of its members became gravely ill. Talk about making a difficult situation next-to-impossible!

“In the beginning, I was really, really sad, but time passed, and I was like, ‘There is no point of being sad. That’s what happened, and this will be my life’,” says Tasnim.

Once the teenager was finally out of the woods and had accepted her fate, she embarked on her most difficult journey yet—re-learning how to walk. Outfitted with prosthetics, the brave double-amputee has been showing a lot of promise in her intensive physical therapy sessions.

Her doctor and mentor, Ruth Alejandro, MD, says she is “very confident that she is going to walk,” and even adds that she’s also “very confident” that Tasnim will go on to become a doctor herself one day.

Wow, talk about perseverance. Something tells us this teenager will reach every goal that she sets for herself. To meet Tasnim and hear her story in her own words, be sure to watch the video below. Talk about strength!

What do you think of Tasnim’s story? Have you ever faced a health crisis akin to hers before? If so, how did you find the strength to get through it?