Eunate Arriaza, the only deaf footballer in the First Division: “I’m like all my teammates even though people think I’m not”

When he was two years old, his parents realized that something was wrong. When they called Eunate, she did not turn around. she was diagnosed profound bilateral hearing loss. “We do not know if it was from birth or with some vaccine or medication. All my family is hearing and they were scared because it was an unknown situation. They pushed forward and took me to doctors in Barcelona and Pamplona to hear different opinions, ” explains the player who, from that moment on, has been wearing a hearing aid in each ear.

The person who lives with this condition can’t hear anything, except for some very loud sounds that he can perceive, for which he has to resort to lip reading and/or sign language. However, the Arriaza family did not simply accept that reality. “They decided to take me to a listening school. They knew that it was not going to be easy, that it was going to cost me a lot. From the age of 3 to 19 I was in that school. Besides, I did extracurricular work with speech therapists and private teachers, in addition to football. I was working 24 hours to be able to speak and listen,” says Eunate.

did not settle

With the passage of time, he went through the operating room. “When I was eight years old, they operated on my left ear because I had less hearing remains and they put the cochlear implant“. This consists of two parts: the first is surgically placed inside the bone that surrounds the ear (temporal bone) and is a stimulator-receptor, which it accepts, decodes, and then sends an electrical signal to the brain. The second part is a external device which is made up of a microphone/receiver, a speech processor and an antenna. This part of the device receives the sound, converts it into an electrical signal, and sends it to the inside of the cochlear implant.

The implant has become a extension of his being “I wear it all day, except for showering and sleeping. In the parties I always carry the implant. I can wear the hearing aid, but I feel more comfortable and safer like this. I always take it unless the weather doesn’t allow it because it rains a lot or it turns off due to sweat. For me, it is another organ. I have to take care of it because I need it. It’s like when your knee is half touched, because you have to be careful with that part of the body. Well, it’s the same with mine,” says the defense sincerely.

When Eunate talks about her story, the first ones she names are His parents. “They have educated me that with work, sacrifice and effort things can be achieved. Nobody gives you anything. In the end, I always have to put the triple effort than the rest, both in the field of education, sports and work. My parents have always told me that if it doesn’t work out the first time, then it will work out the second time,” she says with a special sparkle in her eyes.

No one has made things easier for him, he has had to overcome all barriers with the addition of his “small hearing disability”. “I’m like all my colleagues: I study, I work, I play football… I lead a normal life, although people think that I don’t“.

Despite the fact that barriers are being eliminated day by day, he has had to live grotesque situations. “Once an arbitral trio told me that could not play. They asked me to show them the device while I was warming up and we had to call Athletic’s chief medical officer before the game. When I was changing, they came to look for me and I explained that I had never had any problem playing. they told me that they were worried that it might hurt me or other players. We talked about it and in the end they let me play. Now the referees already know me, but at the beginning we warned them: ‘Player number 14 has an implant, in case she doesn’t hear the whistle,’ “she admits.

Eunate is a reference, in the broadest sense of the word. Athletic’s defense is not only special for being the only deaf player to play in the Primera División, but also for its way of facing life. “Many people tell me that they want to be like me and that makes me very excited. If I have achieved it, why can’t they be able to? I what wanna is that, in the long termthe path that I have made is easier for those who come“, he admits with a certain modesty. Eunate is a pioneer, a benchmark and exceptional.