In this episode, Cookie talks candidly about growing up blind, attending what she calls "Braille jail" (a residential school for the blind), and the decades of guide dogs, technology, and hard-won independence that followed.

She opens up about losing most of her hearing later in life, getting a cochlear implant, and what it's like to navigate websites, devices, and apps that were never designed with blind or deaf-blind users in mind. 

We also dig into the recent changes to the IRIS waiver, the frustration of inaccessible fiscal agent systems, and why she refuses to let anyone else make choices for her.

This is a conversation about disability, aging, advocacy, and what it really means to self-direct your own life, told by someone who's been doing it longer than most systems have existed to support her.

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