Victoria Arlen’s Medical Journey: How the ESPN Host Beat the Odds Twice

Some may know Victoria Arlen as the energetic ESPN host on SportsCenter or from Dancing With the Stars, but her backstory is way more intense than you’d expect. Victoria works as an ESPN on-air personality, author, motivational speaker, model, actor, and former Paralympic swimmer. She was born in 1994 and grew up in New Hampshire. She later became one of ESPN’s youngest on-air hires.

She first built her name in the pool. At the 2012 London Paralympic Games, she won four medals for Team USA in swimming. Today, she hosts and reports across ESPN platforms, including SportsCenter, the X Games, and Special Olympics coverage. But her life has been far from picturesque. Fans now want to know what happened to her after learning about the serious medical battles she once faced.

Victoria’s life changed at age 11. In 2006, she suddenly fell ill with severe pain and weakness. As revealed on her website, doctors later diagnosed her with transverse myelitis and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). The rare conditions caused dangerous inflammation in her brain and spinal cord, and she quickly lost control of her body.

“Within two weeks, I lost all feeling and function in my legs,” she wrote in an essay for ESPN. “Next, my hands stopped working. I couldn't control my arms, couldn't swallow properly or find the right words when I wanted to speak. It was as if someone was slowly shutting down the switches on the circuit board that controlled my body and brain. I was slowly slipping away from my family.”

She then slipped into what doctors considered a vegetative state and spent nearly four years “locked in” — fully aware but unable to communicate or move. Many doctors told her family she would never recover. Her family refused to let that be the end of the story. They cared for her at home and continued talking to her every day. In 2009, a new medication helped control her seizures. She slowly began to respond with eye contact and tiny movements. Soon, words followed. From there, she had to relearn how to speak, eat, and move entirely from scratch.

After she regained partial control, she turned to para-swimming and reached the 2012 London Paralympics. There, she set a world record and won gold in the 100-meter freestyle S6. Her Paralympic career later ended due to classification issues, but she shifted her focus to intensive rehab.

According to Self, Victoria began daily training at Project Walk in 2013. For years, progress felt slow. Then a tiny movement in her leg reignited her hope. In 2017, she pushed her comeback even further by competing on Dancing With the Stars, even though she still lacked full feeling in her legs.

The reason people are asking “what happened to Victoria Arlen” again is that her story took another scary turn years later. On March 17, 2022, after hosting SportsCenter and driving home to West Hartford, Conn., she felt something was wrong in her face. Doctors first feared a stroke. Instead, they diagnosed a relapse of transverse myelitis — the same rare condition that nearly killed her as a child. Her body began to shut down again. She lost movement in her arms and legs and struggled to speak.

Doctors acted quickly and treated her with high-dose intravenous steroids. That fast response helped stop further damage. Victoria later shared on Instagram that she was recovering slowly and planned to return to work.

Since then, she’s been open that she still lives with nerve pain and lingering symptoms, but she works out, skis, hosts live shows, and stays busy. Victoria told People she sees this as “another second chance” and is trying to appreciate every moment.