Shiba Inu (Yuki) Glaucoma Diagnosis Help

Hello everyone, my name is Alex. My wife and I have 3 daughters and 2 pets (Cat and Dog). We got our Shiba Inu as a little puppy when she was around 9 weeks old, and now she just turned 4 the day after Christmas. She has been the greatest pet we've ever had, and she is loved by anyone who meets her. So it was to our dismay that she started to have issues with one of her eye's a couple of months back. Initially, we thought she had injured herself playing outside or just got something stuck in there that caused discomfort. We waited a short period after flushing her eye out and eventually took her to a vet to see if they could help.

The vet did a quick checkup and used tests to see if there was an obstruction or damage to her eye but found none. They gave her some meds for her eye to see if perhaps there was an infection or some other cause and then we went home. Things didn't get better, in fact, they got worse and we soon returned to the vet. They soon realized something was wrong and sent us to see a specialist who began running tests to see if pressure was building up in the eye. Her eye pressure was 39 (Nov 10th), where they said 20 was the ideal number we were looking for. They suspected that glaucoma could be a possible answer but was not sure. Again, we were given meds and sent home.

The next visit was another check-up and things were progressing fast. Her new eye pressure was 50 (Nov 18th) and determined she had glaucoma. We were given another batch of medications (some sort of steroid eye drops and a small amount of pain meds for the extra bad days). We returned a few days later her eye pressure was in the mid 60's! (Nov 21st) and we were immediately given 3 meds that were to be put in her eyes 3 times a day and 1 of the meds in the other eye once 3 days a week. The next visit is on Dec 11th and will be one of two visits to assess and determine what type of surgery is required. If she has lost all vision or its beyond the point of saving, they told us there's an operation that's about $800 to essentially stop the eye from producing fluids and the eye is "dead". This option means she's blind in the eye but the pressure would go away too and would stop the pain. That option had a variable that the eye could be removed and sewn shut (incurring additional costs). The other option would be if she kept all or most vision, they could go in and use some sort of cryo procedure to freeze out areas to stop swelling and the follow-up appointment would be to see if it worked. This procedure would run us around $1500 for the eye and thankfully would not cost more if the vet had to go in again if the first attempt wasn't fully successful.

Vet visits, specialist visits, and meds, all have cost us hundreds of dollars and will continue to cost us hundreds. Even after whatever surgery we go with, medications will always be needed. The whole purpose of this fundraiser isn't for the long term, but rather to help now and in the near future. When we first got Yuki, I was making much more money and if this problem came about back then, I'd have easily been able to handle even the most expensive option. However, the economy's increase in prices, lack of work, and life situations have caused me to bring home much lower amounts of money. Not only that, but we humans also have had numerous situations come up to greatly diminish our safety net of funds. I know that these hard times will pass, and we consider Yuki to be a part of the family. I'll do whatever I can to help keep her healthy and pain-free.

So that's the situation in a nutshell. I know many people say "If you can't afford to take care of a pet, then don't get one!" but life isn't always as simple as that. It was part of our decision to initially adopt Yuki and but I don't think anyone had Covid and a recession planned out. I will say that Yuki has been the best animal companion I've ever had. It breaks my heart to see her go from full of energy and always happy, to a puppers who yelps when she blinks and just lays around in pain. At her worst, we had to feed her broth and water, since she didn't eat and hardly drank for 3 days. So to prevent those days from returning, I'm more than willing to ask others for help. These are just initial costs and this doesn't even consider the issue of dealing with her other eye, which very well might be an issue. All donations will go to Yuki's visits, treatments, or any other things dealing with her glaucoma. If there's extra money, it will go towards future visits, which will be a constant since the other eye will have to be monitored. Perhaps if costs are lower than expected, and funds are high, perhaps we would purchase stuff for Yuki. I'll do updates with appointments, as well as receipts of purchases for medications, treats, or whatever.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. This has been a very unexpected turn of events and never did I even consider something like this would happen. After much thought and through the advice of many people online (mainly some amazing people on Reddit), I'm asking people for help and to trust my word. This is why I'll do my best to keep everyone updated. I only ask people to be patient with me since I've not done something like this before so I hope you all can bare with me a little. Thank you again for your time and if you cannot or do not want to help out financially, I'll gladly take prayers, good vibes, or anything of the sort! Take care everyone!