Victoria Arlen remembers the moment when, last year after driving back to her West Hartford, Connecticut home, suddenly her face "started to droop," and she immediately knew "something was seriously wrong."
It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. The ESPN host, 28, was only 11 years old when she was diagnosed with two rare, and potentially fatal, neurological disorders, transverse myelitis and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis.
For the next four years of her life, she was paralyzed, unable to move or speak, until a "miracle" recovery, after which she won gold at the 2012 Paralympic Games, competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2017 after thinking she would never walk again, and became one of the youngest reporters at ESPN.
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However, last year, she thought she was about to lose it all when she relapsed. "My worst nightmare came true," she told People in a new interview, revealing her health scare.
"I feared I wouldn't be so lucky the second time around," she remembers thinking, particularly after, once she was back in the hospital, her whole body began to shut down, and doctors told her: "We have a very short window before you could end up completely paralyzed – or worse."
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She now recalls: "I'm lying there thinking, 'I can't die like this.' I prayed harder than I've ever prayed before. I was like, 'No, God. This isn't how the story is supposed to end.'"
Though out of fear she refused to believe it was a relapse, acknowledging that that's what was happening to her saved her life, and doctors were able to prevent any permanent paralysis once they confirmed it was a relapse.
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"Sitting up was a process again. Just being able to take steps and stand was a process again," she says, but she was determined to not lose all she had gained, and a week in the hospital and daily rehab, she was back at ESPN, in front of the cameras, only three weeks after her relapse.
© Getty"I really wanted to get back in the game," she says, adding: "I needed to prove to myself that I was going to be okay," explaining that though she definitely "didn't feel safe" in her own body "for a long time," she maintains: "I keep believing in miracles I choose to have faith that I'm going to be okay, and I choose to have hope that things are going to continue to get better."
© GettyNow, not only is she back at her job, she hosted the X Games earlier this year, and can move and walk, she is looking up.
"I've been given another second chance, and I make a conscious effort now more than ever to appreciate every single moment," she confidently says, though not without noting: "Because in the blink of an eye, it can be taken away."
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