In 2021, a rare autoimmune disease attacked then-14-year-old Bella Chambasis’s organs, leaving her hospitalized for nearly a year and requiring a kidney transplant.
Chambasis also suffered a debilitating stroke — only one of several major challenges for her family over the years
But the teen persevered and graduated with honors in Connecticut last week: “Never let anyone tell you what you can or can’t do”
A roar of applause and cheers echoed through Connecticut’s East Haven High School’s football stadium last week as 18-year-old Bella Chambasis slowly made her way across the mid-field stage — flanked by her mom and a school staff member — to receive her diploma.

“I heard everyone screaming at first,” recalls Chambasis. “But then I stopped hearing anything because I was so focused on getting across the stage and making it to the other side.”

For most teenagers, graduating from high school is a rite of passage that marks one of their first steps into adulthood.

For Chambasis — who has endured more hardship and loss than most of us face in a lifetime — those eight steps she took across the stage at her ceremony on Thursday, June 12, were the culmination of years’ worth of hard work and the fulfillment of a vow she made shortly after emerging from a coma in 2021.

“I didn’t just want to be remembered as ‘the girl in the wheelchair,’ ” 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. “I wanted everyone there to remember me as ‘Bella, the girl who overcame kidney failure and survived.’ ”