Recovery can mean healing from a small scab or a minor injury, but for Paralympic gold medalist and former world record holder Victoria Arlen, it meant learning how to walk again after being paralyzed for 10 years.
When she was just 11 years old, Victoria was infected with a very rare disease. For four long years, Victoria couldn’t walk, talk, or move a muscle in her body. But, unbeknownst to those around her, she could hear and think — and with that, she could hope. Harnessing that hope is what ultimately got her through seemingly insurmountable odds and regain her health and life.
First, she developed flu-like symptoms. This then turned into pneumonia. Soon after she began fainting frequently. She found herself frequently in her family doctor’s office. He attempted to treat her recurring illnesses and ear infections, but she kept having to come back. What no one realized is that she had two rare diseases that were slowly destroying her spine.
Over the course of the year, she slowly began losing control of her feet, until eventually, she could no longer get out of bed. This continued to then lose control of her fingers, then she began losing the ability to speak.
No one understood what was happening to her. Finally, one day, Victoria slipped into a coma. The “switch” had been completely turned off.
For two years, Victoria had no memory. During those two years, doctors worked continuously to try and figure out what had caused her coma. Finally, they discovered that she had an autoimmune condition called transverse myelitis (TM). This disease attacks the spinal cord and can cause paralysis to different extents. If there is no improvement within three to six months of the onset of the disease, complete recovery is unlikely.
Victoria Arlen says that she “woke up” from her coma before she actually woke up from it fully. She regained consciousness, but she was unable to move or communicate with anyone. Victoria had no idea that two years had passed. She could hear everything that people were saying around her, but had no way of telling them that she was at least partially awake.
The now 13-year-old tried to talk to them and couldn’t understand why they couldn’t hear her. It wasn’t until later that she realized that the words she thought she was saying out loud, she was only saying in her head.
Victoria soon realized that though she could see, she could only look in the direction that her head was pointing. She was completely unable to move her body, including her neck.
“I realized very quickly no one could hear me,” she said. “I realized, Something’s really wrong.”
Listening to everything happening around her, she slowly began piecing together what had happened. She overheard conversations in her hospital room that made her panic like you couldn’t imagine.
“I was either going to be a vegetable or I was going to die,” she recalled. “I was never going to speak again, walk again, move again.”
Victoria remembers conversations between two doctors who were judging her parents for thinking that she would never recover. Despite the doctors’ pessimistic view, Victoria’s parents and brothers remained faithful.
Victoria lived trapped inside her body like that for an entire year.
Then finally, in the winter of 2009, she was able to do something she hadn’t been able to do thus far. She made eye contact with her mom. Her mom asked her to blink twice if she was really there. Thankfully, Victoria was able to do so. Her mom calls this their Christmas miracle. It was the sign they needed to prove to the doctors that their daughter was not lost forever.
That moment, that eye contact, changed everything. Her recovery began happening much more quickly and eventually, she was able to go home. Bit by bit, she began gaining control over her body again. She began physical therapy and speech therapy. Victoria had to re-learn how to do even basic things like hold up her head again. The next year, though in a wheelchair and still unable to eat food, she was able to return to school.
Six years after initially becoming sick, when Victoria was 17, she won three silver medals and a gold medal in the London 2012 Paralympic Games. This included setting a world record in the 100m freestyle event.
Later on, the International Paralympic Committee disqualified her from the Montreal World Championships because they said her condition may not be permanent. This, despite still being completely unable to use her legs. It was frustrating, but Victoria did not let it keep her down. She continued training daily to hopefully one day stand on her own two feet.
Finally, in the fall of 2015, she felt a flicker in her legs. They kept pushing. Before they knew it, Victoria was on crutches, and then with what she called “big honking leg braces”. By March, she was able to take her first steps – her first in nearly 10 years.
Watch the video below for more details:
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