Many of you know and have seen plenty of pictures of my little baby Lena (or met her yourself). She's a two and a half year old tuxedo cat who I rescued as a kitten when I first moved to Los Angeles. She's incredibly well-tempered, friendly, adventurous, cuddly, and all around my very best friend.

This morning I woke up to the sound of her crying and making noises of pain I had never heard her make before. It took a few minutes to track her down, but she was curled up in a corner of the bathroom with a bloody, watery, half-closed eye. It honestly looked pretty gnarly and for the first 30 or so minutes she wouldn't let me get close to her. Eventually she curled up on my lap and let me start gently petting her, but from then forward she kept her eye closed and would not open it again. After consulting with some vet friends and calling her regular doctor, I took her in to get it checked out, assuming she had scratched it and we could get it cleaned and get some basic antibiotics. It did seem really weird to me that I was able to pick her up and get her in her carrier with absolutely no resistance, almost as if she was dead weight, when normally it's a 20+ minute chase.

Upon getting to the vet, the first thing the doctor said when she opened her eye was "Jesus, that's terrible," which was not reassuring. They checked her out and determined her right eye has a very deep puncture wound—their best guess is that my roommate's cat got aggressive or riled up this morning and dug his claw into Lena's eye. Rather than a simple cleaning and prescription, they ran several tests on her, stained her eye, gave her painkiller injections (the vet said she was surprised she didn't pass out from how much pain she's in, which I couldn't have even detected because she's so quiet and loving), prescribed us surgical-level painkillers, antibiotics, an ocular repair gel, and a cone. They then sent us to see a cat ophthalmologist for a corneal scrape some more tests, and a more in-depth look to make sure glaucoma had not yet developed. So far that isn't the case, but they're having her come back in on Sunday for a follow-up, and if glaucoma does develop she will need to have her eye removed. The ophthalmologist's send-off to me was "I'm rooting for her to be okay, but I don't know." Which, again, wasn't reassuring.

To make this comical, my pet insurance lapsed about a week and a half ago. I was intending to switch from our provider to bundle with my car insurance when I switch my plan the first week of September, and figured, "she's had nothing happen for the past two years. One month will be fine." And that's how it always goes.

I'm heartbroken and scared in the event she needs to have surgery, and even if we manage to escape that, it sounds like she's going to need a few more appointments of follow-up care and checks before she can be considered in the clear. As a lone cat caregiver scraping by right now, as we all are, I'm usually very good at figuring these things out on my own and am often too prideful to ask for help when I'd rather pull a solution out of a hat. So it pains me to even be making this. But I'm just not equipped right now to handle something this unexpected going into what I was already preparing to be the hardest financial month of the year.

Right now her care for just today ran us $863. I'm setting the goal for this fundraiser to cover that, as well as supplies, new litterbox, etc. to set her up in my room as the vet said she needs to be completely isolated from the other cat in the house. If I can get some or most of this covered, I'll feel a bit more prepared going into next week to cover ongoing costs of checkups, potential surgery, etc. I was able to open a CareCredit card and have this all on that for now, thank god.

Anyone who knows me knows how this is causing me physical pain to post, but I'd rather suck it up and ask for help to make sure Lena can comfortably get the care she needs rather that stretch myself to the brink and not be able to dedicate my attention to her.

Thanks for anything you're able to give, or for sharing.