2-taong gulang na bata, nasilayan na sa wakas ang kaniyang ina matapos ang isang matagumpay na operasyon!

A mother’s joy is seeing her child for the first time. A mother’s heartbreak, however, is when she finds out that her child can neither see nor hear her. This was the plight of 26 year-old Daiana Pereira, who shared her family’s story through a Facebook post which has now gone viral. Her daughter, Nicolly Pereira, was born with a rare disease called pediatric glaucoma. This disease only affects one in 10,000 children. Unfortunately, Nicolly was one of them. Pediatric glaucoma causes excess fluid to build up inside the eye, damaging the optic nerve. For young patients, however, this disease can be cured.

The Pereira family hails from Brazil. Nicolly went through seven unsuccessful surgeries in their home country but to no avail. Her hearing and sight were not restored, and she spent most of her early life relying on her other senses. This prompted Daiana to finally take to Facebook to share her family’s struggle. Her post has since gone viral, and by some stroke of luck her story reached a local in Miami. The said local contacted two organizations who were able to raise almost $20,000, around PHP 1 million, for Nicolly’s surgery at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami. However, expenses do not stop there. The family needed a place to stay as well as sustenance for the duration of their stay in Miami. God does indeed work in mysterious ways, because kindhearted strangers helped them by providing them with housing and gift cards.

When the Pereiras finally got to Bascom Palmer, the doctors realized that Nicolly’s case was pretty severe. Her hearing impairment was caused by the build-up of fluid from her pediatric glaucoma in her inner ears. Dr. Ramzi Younis wasted no time and immediately performed surgery to drain the fluid from her ears. Within half an hour, Nicolly could hear for the first time.

To restore her sight, Dr. Alana Grajewski performed a three-hour surgery on Nicolly. Normally, children her age would have an eye pressure of 10-20 which was considered the healthy range. Nicolly, however, had an eye pressure of 50. Dr. Grajewki, after performing the surgery, was able to bring this down to 12.

In a video that captured the removal of Nicolly’s eye patches, the little girl could be seen crying while her patches were being removed due to pain. However, once they were completely removed, she stopped crying and began to look around. When her eyeglasses were put on, Nicolly finally saw her mother. The girl smiled and pressed her face against her mother’s, and knew at that moment that she was her mother. Daiana described what she felt at that moment in one word: “God.” Dr. Grajewski was moved by the incredibly touching moment, and said in an interview, “I loved the feeling of first seeing her mom’s face. That just moved me so much. . . . Then all of a sudden, she realized: ‘Oh my gosh, that’s my mom.’ And her mother could tell the recognition. It was just one of those moments — priceless.”

Despite the seven past surgeries that failed, Daiana did not stop until she found a way to get her daughter better. Indeed, a mother’s love knows no bounds.

Watch their touching video below!