This is my furriend Joella!

When Joella was born, she was very sick. She was in the hospital for a long time and had 15 surgeries before she was 6 months old!

When Joella was feeling better, she went to see an eye doctor. The eye doctor found out that Joella couldn’t see very well! She has something called cortical/cerebral visual impairment, or CVI for short. That means her brain has to work extra hard to see things. She also has iris atrophy, which means her irises (the part of your eye that lets light in) don’t work very well.

Those two things together mean that some days Joella can see ok, and some days Joella can’t see very well at all.

On the days that Joella can’t see very well, she uses a sight cane! Her sight cane is pink and red and white, it helps her feel where things are around her. Kinda like how my whiskers help me feel what’s around me! She moves it back and forth to “watch” where she is going.

It took Joella a little while to learn how to use her sight cane. She practiced on steps, sidewalks and curbs. Now she’s pawesome with it and uses it whenever she has a day that she doesn’t see well.