A young Arizona woman who survived cancer twice as a child is now fighting another life-threatening battle — this time after a homemade seafood dish left her paralyzed by one of the rarest forms of food poisoning in the United States.

Trinity Peterson-Mayes, 24, was hospitalized with botulism after eating homemade fermented swordfish with a group of friends in February, a meal that quickly spiraled into a medical nightmare.

The rare illness nearly left her unable to breathe or move.

“It tasted horrible, I’m going to be so honest,” Peterson-Mayes told Arizona television station KPNX. “It’s supposed to be healthy and I figured I might as well try. If it’s bad, I’ll just get a bad stomach ache.”

Instead, the meal triggered a frightening series of symptoms that worsened by the hour.

Within days, she began noticing that drinking water had suddenly become difficult.

“Slowly, over the course of 24 hours, I went from not being able to chug water to not being able to drink any water at all,” she recalled.

The moment she realized something was seriously wrong came when she tried to take a sip of coffee and immediately choked.

Concerned, Peterson-Mayes went to a hospital for help. But doctors initially struggled to identify what was happening and nearly discharged her.

Her condition soon deteriorated further, prompting doctors to transfer her to St. Joseph’s Medical Center and the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix for specialized neurological care.

That is when physicians discovered the cause: botulism.

Botulism is an extremely rare but dangerous illness caused by toxins produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. The toxin attacks the body’s nerves and can cause paralysis, breathing failure and death.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about two dozen cases of foodborne botulism occur in the United States each year.

Emergency physician Dr. Frank LoVecchio told KPNX that most doctors will never see a single case during their entire careers.

“It causes this paralysis of your muscles, and most important being your chest muscles — those that are responsible for breathing,” he explained.

By the time Peterson-Mayes woke up in intensive care, she was surrounded by tubes and machines.

“I woke up and I had three IVs,” she said. “I was intubated, I had a central line in my neck, and I had an NG tube.”

Even more terrifying was what she realized next.

“I just woke up and I couldn’t move at all,” she said. “It was very scary.”

At the time, she was unable to speak or walk.

Two of the five friends who ate the fermented swordfish with her also developed botulism and required hospitalization. Both have since been released.

Peterson-Mayes, however, faces a longer road to recovery.

Her mother, Loren Amatruda, said the illness has been especially heartbreaking given everything her daughter has already endured.

Peterson-Mayes was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer when she was just two months old. Years later, at age 11, she battled an aggressive bone cancer and survived again.

“After everything she had been through as a child, we believed the hardest battles were behind her,” Amatruda wrote in a GoFundMe message supporting her daughter’s recovery.

Recovery from botulism can take weeks or even months because the damaged nerves must slowly regenerate.

Patients often require physical therapy and rehabilitation just to regain basic functions.

Despite the frightening ordeal, Peterson-Mayes is already beginning to show the resilience that helped her survive cancer twice.

According to her mother, she is fighting every day to relearn the everyday abilities many people take for granted — speaking, swallowing and moving normally again.

For Peterson-Mayes, it is another battle she never expected to fight — but one she is determined to survive.