Life has a way of changing quickly and sometimes, it can have an impact that is more than we ever could have anticipated. That is what happened to one family when their daughter suddenly fell ill.
Victoria Arlenis and her two brothers were born as triplets and she grew up in a happy home. She did well as an athlete and loved to dance, and most people saw her as being an energetic girl who was full of life.
When Victoria turned 11, she started experiencing symptoms that were similar to the flu. She also struggled with pneumonia and fainting spells and two weeks later, she was paralyzed from the waist down. She had inflammation in her nervous system, including her brain, and she became less engaged as time went along.
Eventually, Victoria would lose the ability to eat, speak, and move. At that point, she went into a vegetative state, and for four years, she was ‘locked’ in her own body. Doctors did not give much of a chance of her recovering.
Her mother, Jacqueline, began to lose hope and with the news from the physicians, she exclaimed: “I was losing her.” It seemed like very dark days for the family, but nobody knew that there was something happening in the background.
When Victoria was lying in the hospital bed unable to communicate or move, she was aware of what was taking place around her. About four years later in 2010, she woke up from that vegetative state, still paralyzed from the waist down.
She may have been locked in her own body, but that is only part of the story. You can hear the rest of the story in the following video: