A two-year-old girl from Brazil named Nicolly Pereira suffers from pediatric glaucoma, so she’s been blind since birth. And on top of that, she’s also been deaf her entire life. Doctors in Brazil did seven different surgeries to restore her vision, but nothing worked. Her mom wanted to fly her to a hospital in the U.S., but couldn’t afford it.
Then she posted something about it on Facebook recently, and a 10-year-old offered to donate a prize he won in a youth auto race to get them to the U.S. Then two nonprofits in Miami raised $17,000 to pay for the surgery, and it happened last month.
Her doctors didn’t know if it worked at first, because she had to have patches on her eyes. But when they took them off, she saw her MOM for the first time. And they could tell from the look on her face that it DID work.
And while she was in the hospital, they also realized she’s not ACTUALLY deaf. She just had a crazy amount of water build-up in her inner ears. So they did a 30-minute operation the same day, and she can also HEAR now.
Her doctor says she’s still nearsighted, and she’ll never have perfect vision. But it’s a huge improvement, and she’s coming back for a check-up in about a year.
(Check out a video of Nicolly and her mom here.)
