The two don't mix. I'm currently un-employed and I'm tyring to find anywhere I can to help my Lucy. I saw another post with some links I'm looking into and I will call some local shelters and organazations later today.
I also was wondering about Glacoma and what the outcome for Lucy's good eye would be. I completely trust my vet I've been using for the past three years but in these types of situations it's always good to hear other opinions. That's more calls I will make and I'll probably take her to one other vet or something to see if the surgery to remove the eye may be less or something. The ideal situation would be to find a way to get her in with the optomatrist my vet has been consulting with.
As for what happened I came home one day to find Lucy's eye swollen and she couldn't keep it open. Intially the vet thought she had gotten something in it, however due to her age and the fact she's a bassett she wanted to rule out the possibility of glacome (Lucy is about 6-7 years old) but through the generosity of family we were able to pay for the tests to see if there was a scratch or something and also the test for galcoma. That day everything came back normal and we were given a medication to help keep her eye clean and from getting infected. That night was the worst night. Her eye never got better, she was in pain all night. She couldn't get comfortable, everything she touched with her face hurt and she was wimpering most of the night. I seriously considered taking her to dog emergency room out here but morning was only a few hours away by the time it got to that point. I took her to the vet immediately that morning and was shocked when she finally opened her eyes a little when I pulled out her leash. Her eye was very swollen, cloudy, and blue. The vet thankfuly re-did the glacoma test and didn't charge me and her eye pressure went from 16 to 72 overnight. She was hospitalized and given an IV medication to bring the pressures down. Something my family once again paid for. We all thought the medications were going to help but her eye hasn't improved and her vision has not returned. At her re-check visit the vet gave me the grim news that she was blind and her eye would be very painful and would always look the way it did, swollen blue and cloudy. She mentioned that if I were to try to save the eye I'd have to continue with all her medicaitons which would be about $90/week and that the eye is just causing pain and problems so the best option would be to remove it. However my family cannot help any further and I'm not getting any job offers. So I'm trying to make Lucy as comfortable as possible until the surgery can be done. It kills me to see her in such bad shape as the pain has been so bad this past couple of days she hasn't really eaten anything (also due to the medications) and today her breathing became labored and she was wimpering a lot which is why I once again took her back in and they added another pain med for her and at the moment she's a little better, just still sleeping more often then not still. At least she finally ate a little and there seems to be hope that her pain will be managable now.
Well if anyone else out there as been through Glacoma before with their dogs it'd be good to hear what has happened and/or if anything else that may be done.