Suki's Veterinarian Bills
Donation protected
This is my baby Suki, she is a 5 ½ year old Shiba Inu. She’s never had the best of luck in life, she was born with a deformed vertebrae which caused her to be partially paralyzed in her back end. When we found out the Vet told us “This is a dog even I couldn’t take care of, I would put her down. She doesn’t seem to have much of a personality anyways.” At one year she should of fully grown and would have to of had a wheelchair to help her along. Well she had already crawled into our hearts and was such a happy, loving dog, she just had a little extra puppy wobble. We had decided to wait and see what happens. One year came and gone and she didn’t grow much past 6 months so she never really got worse, only better. She was getting less wobbly, controlling her bladder, and continued to enjoy life.
Everything was going fine until the beginning of this year.. we got unlucky once again. In February her eye was really cloudy and inflamed. We went to the Vet right away and received some drops, they weren’t working and he gave us more to try with still no result. This was over a 5 week period; we had enough and went to the specialist [370]. After plenty of tests [500] Suki’s eye had glaucoma, her pressure was around 87 (normal range is around 15ish). She was in terrible pain, two days later we had her eye removed [2,000].
Now since we know there’s no underlining cause, just genetic glaucoma.. her other eye is prone to it as well. Suki’s action plan was to keep that eye visual as long as possible. So we went onto a regiment of 3 different drops, 5-6 drops a day. She was doing really well and the eye was staying clear of glaucoma. She even adjusted to having just the one eye very well.
And now the other boot dropped and about four weeks ago her other eye had come cloudy and lost vision. We rushed down to the Emergency Vet to make sure she was okay and if it was what we thought it was. We stayed at the vet from 3am until almost 7, Suki ended up staying all of Wednesday morning until midafternoon [890]. Her pressure had spiked to 80 and we had to get the pressure down, so they ended up doing an IV to bring it back down. At this point we had a few options to help secure her vision for as long as possible.
Option 1: Laser ontop of the eye (try to prevent the cells from overproducing so much fluid) [2,000]
Option 2: Laser underneath the eye (same concept but more invasive and higher chance of her just becoming blind from it) [3,800]
Option 3: Remove the eye [1,900]
By this point we’re so overwhelmed, with the other eye it was so far damaged there was nothing we could do so there was just one decision to make: sew the eye shut or put in a fake eye. Now we have multiple options since we caught it early, on Thursday we decided to do the laser procedure on top of the eye for Friday. Suki comes home from the surgery a few hours after, she’s doing good. A few days later bam the cloudiness is back, the pressure is up. We are explained how the lasers procedures full effectiveness isn’t until the 4th week. Now Suki is on 7 different eye drops 3x a day and a couple oral medications as well. The medications aren’t doing enough on their own.. the only thing working is having her eye drained every 3 days [289]. This was buying us time to see which direction we wanted to head to next.
Well this past Wednesday Suki’s pressure spiked to 74 within 24 hours of having the eye drained. We’re out of time, the pressure is building too quickly. We’re told we have to make a decision today.
Option 1: Freeze the ducts (60% chance of going blind – with only like a 30% success rate) very risky, long painful recovery – not recommended [2,200]
Option 2: Laser again (Unlikely results) [1,500]
Option 3: Shunt (permeant drain in her eye that has to be replaced every few months due to clogging) [2,700 – 4,000 shunt & laser]
Option 4: Remove her eye [1,500]
Suki will have her eye removed Wednesday (October 22) after we spent the weekend at the pond, park and enjoy her vision while she still has it. Now my husband and I are extremely proud, independent people. I don’t know what to do, we’re almost $5,000 over our heads and another $1,500 Wednesday. We are already barely scratching by as is and with all these unexpected costs we’re eating up any credit we have. We need help.
Thank you for your time to hear our story.
The Pena’s
Everything was going fine until the beginning of this year.. we got unlucky once again. In February her eye was really cloudy and inflamed. We went to the Vet right away and received some drops, they weren’t working and he gave us more to try with still no result. This was over a 5 week period; we had enough and went to the specialist [370]. After plenty of tests [500] Suki’s eye had glaucoma, her pressure was around 87 (normal range is around 15ish). She was in terrible pain, two days later we had her eye removed [2,000].
Now since we know there’s no underlining cause, just genetic glaucoma.. her other eye is prone to it as well. Suki’s action plan was to keep that eye visual as long as possible. So we went onto a regiment of 3 different drops, 5-6 drops a day. She was doing really well and the eye was staying clear of glaucoma. She even adjusted to having just the one eye very well.
And now the other boot dropped and about four weeks ago her other eye had come cloudy and lost vision. We rushed down to the Emergency Vet to make sure she was okay and if it was what we thought it was. We stayed at the vet from 3am until almost 7, Suki ended up staying all of Wednesday morning until midafternoon [890]. Her pressure had spiked to 80 and we had to get the pressure down, so they ended up doing an IV to bring it back down. At this point we had a few options to help secure her vision for as long as possible.
Option 1: Laser ontop of the eye (try to prevent the cells from overproducing so much fluid) [2,000]
Option 2: Laser underneath the eye (same concept but more invasive and higher chance of her just becoming blind from it) [3,800]
Option 3: Remove the eye [1,900]
By this point we’re so overwhelmed, with the other eye it was so far damaged there was nothing we could do so there was just one decision to make: sew the eye shut or put in a fake eye. Now we have multiple options since we caught it early, on Thursday we decided to do the laser procedure on top of the eye for Friday. Suki comes home from the surgery a few hours after, she’s doing good. A few days later bam the cloudiness is back, the pressure is up. We are explained how the lasers procedures full effectiveness isn’t until the 4th week. Now Suki is on 7 different eye drops 3x a day and a couple oral medications as well. The medications aren’t doing enough on their own.. the only thing working is having her eye drained every 3 days [289]. This was buying us time to see which direction we wanted to head to next.
Well this past Wednesday Suki’s pressure spiked to 74 within 24 hours of having the eye drained. We’re out of time, the pressure is building too quickly. We’re told we have to make a decision today.
Option 1: Freeze the ducts (60% chance of going blind – with only like a 30% success rate) very risky, long painful recovery – not recommended [2,200]
Option 2: Laser again (Unlikely results) [1,500]
Option 3: Shunt (permeant drain in her eye that has to be replaced every few months due to clogging) [2,700 – 4,000 shunt & laser]
Option 4: Remove her eye [1,500]
Suki will have her eye removed Wednesday (October 22) after we spent the weekend at the pond, park and enjoy her vision while she still has it. Now my husband and I are extremely proud, independent people. I don’t know what to do, we’re almost $5,000 over our heads and another $1,500 Wednesday. We are already barely scratching by as is and with all these unexpected costs we’re eating up any credit we have. We need help.
Thank you for your time to hear our story.
The Pena’s
Organizer
Amanda Pena
Organizer
Gilbert, AZ
