Karlita Leshelle Martin has overcome a lot to just be like every other kid at her school — to be normal, as she puts it.

This weekend, Karlita, who will be a senior at Leonardo da Vinci High School, fulfills a dream of singing at a national gospel music workshop in Cincinnati. It’s a major accomplishment, as she is already living three years past what doctors expected.

She is a cancer survivor. She had to undergo 11 surgeries, lost a kidney and had two liver transplants, all within three and a half months — when she was only five years old. Karlita could not have survived if she had not received the liver of an Amish boy from Pennsylvania.

Karlita said she is like every other girl in school. She flirts with boys and enjoys flaunting her jewelry. She’s a “girly girl,” who likes dressing up but still appreciates the comfort of a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

She appears to be a healthy teenager, and she is, but there is one thing, she said, that makes her different: at five, she had a Wilms’ Tumor, a kidney cancer commonly found in children between nine months and 12 years old.

“I had cancer in my right kidney, two liver transplants and I even died twice,” Karlita said. “It is really a miracle I am alive today.”

Karlita’s journey started in 1996 with a trip to Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, where a routine checkup turned into a full-scale health emergency. Once doctors notified her mother, Linda, that her daughter already had stage three cancer, and there wasn’t much time.

Linda Martin contacted three children’s hospitals across the country, hoping to find someone who could perform surgery on her daughter, to save her life.

Hospitals in Georgia and South Carolina turned them down but Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh said yes.

Two days later, the Martins arrived at the hospital. Once checked in and settled, the family could do nothing but wait.

Karlita went through one month of chemotherapy and had one treatment. Her body couldn’t take any more, and began to shut down.

After hours of surgery, doctors had mixed news. The good news was Karlita’s kidney was removed safely, along with all traces of cancer, but that came at a greater price.

Chemotherapy burned her liver — the radiation was too much. She was placed on a list to be the next recipient for a liver transplant.

Karlita had 48 hours to live. “The doctor said he didn’t even know how she was surviving. I didn’t know if we would have a child to bring home,” Linda Martin said. “Our faith and our family, that’s what held us together. Our church had full support as well. Without the power of God, I don’t know how I would have gotten through this.”

The first liver she received was from a 56-year-old West Virginia man, but it gave her a blood infection and had to be removed.

She was again placed on a waiting list, with another 48 hours to live.

“By that time, I had lost it,” Linda Martin said.

Karlita was clinically dead twice because of a lack of oxygen and was revived on the operating table. Doctors told her mother if Karlita survived, she would have severe brain damage.

Within a few hours, an Amish family rushed into the hospital. Their son, Robby McGrady, was crossing the street in New Galilee, Pa. when he was struck by an 18-wheeler, thrown 50 feet into the air, and arrived in critical condition.

Linda Martin and the boy’s mother began to comfort one another, exchanging stories about their children. Martin eventually went back to her room to get some sleep.

She awoke at 4 a. m. to an urgent call. The hospital has secured a second donor. She knew it had to be Robby’s liver. It was.

“I had no words, but when I arrived, Robby’s family just embraced me,” Linda Martin said. “It was a sad day. He died to save my little girl’s life. And his mother was so happy that in death, Robby could make a difference. She said, ‘I am glad he can live on through Karlita.’ ”

The Martins and McGradys have been friends ever since. The two families seem like one, attending each other’s birthdays and high school graduations.

When Karlita was 10, she started climbing fences, nothing her mother had ever seen her do before. That’s when the McGradys said it wasn’t Karlita.

“His mother just laughed when I told her. She said, ‘That’s probably just Robby. Sounds like something he would do,’ ” Linda Martin said.

After graduation, Karlita’s goal is to attend St. Bonaventure University to obtain her bachelor’s degree in business management. It’s her dream to own her own business.

But for now, she is happy singing gospel music. Her favorite hymn, she said, is “Revive Me,” a song that holds more than one meaning for her: her praise of God and the grateful feeling she embraces for her life.

That’s why the Gospel Music Workshop of America means so much to her. Chosen as Western New York’s representative, it’s a chance for her to shine. She wants to sing. She wants to live, just like everyone else, and this, she said, is living.

“I’m so thankful for a second chance,” Karlita said. “I’m pretty much back to normal, just like all the regular kids. I would love to be able to tell Robby thank you if I could talk to him today. I would just say it over and over again, ‘thank you.’ ”