Emily Pesina’s parents feared what her life would look like. Today, they call her a “miracle.”

“She goes to high school.  She does it independently,” said her dad, Phillip Pesina.

Emily was diagnosed with Rasmussen’s Syndrome. It’s a rare inflammatory neurological disease that can mean seizures, loss of motor skills and speech.

‘Emily was 2 1/2 when she had her first seizure.  That spanned 6/8 months.  That one seizure turned into 400 a day,” said Phillip.

When Emily was three and a half, her parents decided she should have brain surgery called a hemispherectomy.

“To save her life, save her quality of life the doctor went in and basically severed the hemispheres of their brain,” said Alison Chapa, Emily’s Occupational Therapist.

Emily has thrived since that procedure. She receives therapy at Covenant Outpatient Rehab’s Neuroscience Institute.

“We started early with her.  We got to be with her along the way.  I’ve been with her since she was 3 1/2 and she’s 16 now,” said Chapa.

And they say she’s a teenager who continues to shock her doctors.