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Given her backstory, its kind of amazing and mind-blowing that shes alivelet alone able to tango onDWTS.
Eric McCandless/Getty Images
I have an incredible teacher, Val [Chmerkovskiy], she said on Monday nights episode.
My back and side ached, so doctors took out my appendix, she wrote.
Then my legs began giving out.
Within two weeks, I lost all feeling and function in my legs.
Next, my hands stopped working.
Arlen says she was slowly slipping away from her family before everything went dark.
Two years later, she woke up and couldnt move.
I was locked in.
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However, the function in her legs took longer to return.
Eventually, she began doing activity-based therapy through a San Diego-based paralysis recovery center called Project Walk.
That day, one of my trainers noticed a flicker, a small movement from within my right leg.
It wasn’t much, but it was all the hope I needed, she wrote.
I harnessed that flicker and fanned the flame.
Slowly, I began regaining movement in my legs.
Five months later, she walked without crutchesand as of this month, she’s competing onDWTS.
Transverse myelitis is an inflammation of a section of the spinal cord, according to theMayo Clinic.
That inflammation messes with the messages the nerves of the spinal cord send to the rest of the body.
That can lead to muscle weakness, pain, and paralysis, the organization says.
The inflammation is key to both illnesses.
And that illness could have been as simple as anupper respiratory tract infection.
The conditions are also treatable if theyre caught in timeand they often are.
Usually we treat these with steroids to cut down on the inflammation, Dr. Kesari says.
Steroids can make a remarkable difference pretty quickly.
One major factor in recovery is time.
If inflammation continues unchecked, it can cause permanent damage over time, Dr. Kesari says.
Another factor is how severe a persons illness was.
Some cases in children can be deadly within a few weeks, Dr. Fox says.
For some people, that will be lifelong.
Two years ago they werent even moving and now theyre tangoing."
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