11-Year-Old Girl Overcome with Emotion After Hearing Clearly for Very First Time
A little girl from California couldn’t hold back the tears after hearing clearly for the very first time thanks to her new hearing implant.
Catalina Arroyo, 11, was born with Spina bifida and inner-bone hearing loss, CBS News reported.
Watching her play at the park with her family, you’d never know that doctors predicted Catalina would never walk. Catalina is bursting with life, all smiles as she absorbs the new sounds around her.
Catalina’s adoptive mother, Christina Arroyo, said that prior to Catalina’s hearing implant, it was as if her daughter was “trapped” inside her own body.
Catalina did her best to make out the noises and voices around her, but everything sounded muffled.
“They said it was the vibrations that she would hear from us,” Arroyo told CBSLA.
When the day came for Catalina to hear for the first time, Arroyo had her camera ready to record the milestone moment.
Arroyo figured her daughter would have a pretty memorable reaction, but she never expected Catalina to sob gut-wrenching tears the way she did.
The new sensation was so overwhelming, the child really didn’t know what else to do other than simply cry.
“You could hear once they put it in?” a reporter asked Catalina.
“Yeah!” the girl enthusiastically responded.
“Were you excited?” the reporter asked.
“Yeah!” Catalina smiled.
Arroyo is confident that Catalina’s ability to learn will skyrocket now that she can hear. She hopes the implant will also improve Catalina’s ability to speak.
“She’s a miracle,” Arroyo said, beaming at her daughter who has defied so many odds.
Arroyo feels that a whole new menu of possibilities has been opened for her daughter now that Catalina can hear. Her future is looking brighter and brighter all the time.
“She’d be more than what everyone expects from her,” Arroyo said.
Catalina isn’t too worried about the future just yet. She’s too busy soaking up the sounds of the world around her and distinguishing the differences between voices from the people she most loves.
The best part of hearing so far, Catalina says, is hearing the voices of her friends.
Play on, little girl.
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