Leanna Scaglione – a former ballerina who completed a half marathon in March, just two months after undergoing brain surgery – is now preparing to run the New York City Marathon on Sunday.

“This is my turn at redemption,” the 32-year-old Upper East Sider told the Post.

Scaglione will tackle the 26.2-mile course less than a year after having a brain tumor removed. The procedure left her deaf in her right ear and with temporary facial paralysis. She couldn’t move the right side of her face or smile, much less walk from one side of her apartment to the other.

“It’s the hardest surgery I’ve ever had,” said Scaglione, who works as a personal assistant. “But I kept asking my doctor, ‘Can I start running again?'”

Scaglione has been battling – and overcoming – serious health issues for years.

At 15, she had an MRI for what she thought was a ballet injury. That’s when doctors noticed she had a “grapefruit-sized tumor” in her lower spine. They diagnosed him with neurofibromatosis, an incurable genetic disease that causes tumors to grow throughout the body.

Scaglione underwent two surgeries to remove the tumor and remained in a wheelchair for a year. “I lost all feeling in my right leg, so I couldn’t stand up,” she recalls. She was told she would never dance again. But that didn’t deter the teenager.

She eventually became a walker and, two years later, she moved out on her own.

“I was never going to let (my illness) define how I was going to live my life,” Scaglione said.

Since then, 13 tumors have been removed from him – along his spine, along his wrists and most recently in his brain.

She started running during the pandemic to escape confinement.

“Like everyone, I needed some air,” she says. “At first I was scared because of the nerve damage in my right leg…(but) then I ran a mile. I was so proud of myself and so shocked and excited that I was like, “I have to try again!” »

She now runs regularly to raise funds for the Children’s Tumor Foundation.

Scaglione competed in the New York City Marathon last year, but had to walk much of it after a brain tumor growing on a main nerve leading to her right ear grew so large that it disrupted her hearing and its balance.

Last January, doctors removed the brain tumor and added an auditory brainstem implant to help him recognize sounds.

His goal now is to run a fast race on Sunday and finish in less than four hours. She has already signed up for three marathons – London, Berlin and New York – in 2025 as a national ambassador for the Children’s Tumor Foundation.

“By participating in these races, it’s a physical way for me to say, ‘I can do this.’ I understand. I addressed this. I can move on,” Scaglione said. “What I’ve learned the most is that this diagnosis doesn’t have to control and define our lives. It doesn’t mean our lives stop. We just pivot .