ESPN Personality Leaned on the Lord When ‘Vegetative State’ Left Her ‘Locked’ In

Published: May 15, 2026

By Mallory Mattingly

ESPN personality, speaker and author Victoria Arlen has a story full of perseverance and trust in the Lord.

When Arlen was 11, she developed two rare conditions: Transverse Myelitis and Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis.

“This was an incredibly rare scenario and Victoria quickly lost the ability to speak, eat, walk and move,” her website reads. “She slipped into a vegetative state in which doctors had written her off as a lost cause. Victoria spent nearly four years ‘locked’ inside her own body, completely aware of what was going on, just unable to move or communicate. Doctors believed there was little hope of survival and recovery was unlikely. Victoria, however, was not ready to give up. In 2010, after almost four years, she began the nearly impossible fight back to life. Learning how to speak, eat and move all over again.”

Through her determination and gratitude in God, she reclaimed her life.

“What’s crazy is I’ve learned that hope is actually very scary for people, and I think it’s something that hope is believing in what you don’t see, and that’s also what faith is,” Arlen said on the Sports Spectrum “Get in the Game” podcast. “So for me, I kept reminding myself that God wouldn’t let my story end in defeat, and if God is before me, who dares be against me. And I kept reminding myself that while the doctors and all the circumstances are saying I shouldn’t be here, I’m still here.”

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She said that staying away from negativity helped her.

“…you can write your obituary, but I also wrote a bucket list,” she continued. “And so for me, it was, what am I grateful for? Well, I’m grateful that I’m still alive. I’m grateful I have a family that loves me. I’m grateful that my mom has kept up with my manicure. I’m grateful that my brothers are able to be around me.”

“And so it was like finding those little things every single day, not realizing my mom was doing the same thing when she’d come into my house because they set up a hospital room in our living room, and she would come in and just thank God for the clean sheets, thank God for the medications, thank God for all the equipment. Because…it was so bad that we had to find something good every day,” Arlen added.