It’s hard to be a teenager at the best of times. Other kids are cruel, there’s the pressure of exams and parental expectations and the awkwardness of growing up in general as you try to get used to a rapidly changing body.
Can you imagine how much worse it must be to be 15 years old and have to face down the permanent removal of a limb? That’s where Dareen Barbar found herself and it’s taken a long time for her to recover her confidence.
This is her inspiring story of taking her life by the horns, despite the hand it dealt her.
10. Meet Dareen Barbar
Dareen is from Lebanon, and while you might assume that means her amputation is related to the problems her country faces, in fact, it was as the result of a deeply invasive bone cancer. She had to lose her leg or lose her life, a tough choice for anyone to make.