Meet Jules

The first thing Jules told me was that she had joined a ski club and that she also plays unified soccer and basketball for fun. Jules, who has been blind since the age of 3 due to retinopathy of prematurity, said that she needs people on either side of her to guide her when she skies but basically, she does lots of the actual maneuvering herself.

Jules explained that she has a prosthetic eye now after one eye caused her great pain and needed to be replaced. She uses a cane and also has a full-time aid who reads braille to help in her middle school. She said that a big challenge is memorizing the routes inside her school, especially since next year she will be going to high school, which is even larger and more complicated.

In classes Jules has a variety of tools to help her, including braille math books, calculators, and braille screen tablets. She loves to read with her fingers and would like to be a writer someday.

Jules is a delightful young woman and an inspiration to all who live with vision problems. Despite being visually impaired, she continues to move on with her life, learning in every possible way with appreciation for the aids that help her navigate the world.

Jules sees Dr. Capone and Dr. Droste once a year each to make sure all is going well and is glad of their care. It is through this foundation that future innovations will be made for children and adults with her disease.

~ Kay White