When she was only 11, Victoria Arlen knew something wasn’t right with her body. The girl felt that something terrible was slowly happening to her but didn’t know what it was.
Soon she suddenly fell ill and could not participate in her active lifestyle that always included dancing and swimming.
When Victoria’s illness started, the symptoms were similar to the common flu, but they later developed into more serious issues that resulted in her losing use of her legs. And as time went on, her mother, Jacqueline, grew more concerned about her daughter’s fate.
After taking countless trips to the hospital, the young girl was finally diagnosed with two different autoimmune diseases, which harmed her brain and spinal cord. It seemed that there was very little hope Victoria would ever recover.
The young girl couldn’t communicate the way she used to, but that never stopped her devoted parents from loving and caring for her. Victoria was paralyzed entirely, unable to blink signals or move her eyes!
It’s was like something out of a horror movie.
But one day, something happened that even her doctors could not explain.
Victoria’s parents were shocked to learn that despite what seemed to everyone to be an unconscious state, Victoria was fully aware! The young girl had been trapped inside her own body, desperately trying every day to find a way to communicate.
Despite not being able to communicate or move, Victoria was still very aware of everything around her, and her family never had a clue.
Then when she was 15, she understood that her family and everyone believed she was gone, just an empty shell.
But, things began turning around when doctors visited her and prescribed a particular medication that allowed her to start moving her eyes again. This enabled Victoria to communicate with her parents after four long years finally!
Today, Victoria has not only regained control of her body but has gone on to become an accomplished swimmer, a semi-finalist on Dancing with the Stars, and is now an anchor for ESPN!
You can watch Victoria tell her remarkable story in the video below.
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