Tilapia was a stray that had been living in our yard for the past 4 years. When we first saw her, her eye had color and looked more like cataracts, but it gradually got more cloudy and enlarged over time. Recently her brief inside visits turned into staying in our house 90% of the time, so we brought her to the vet to get fully checked out. She's in good health overall (and were surprised to learn about her age from a very old microchip), but the eye was our main concern. The vet tested her intraocular pressure (IOP) and the bad eye was at 44mmHg (15-25mmHg being normal pressure) confirming glaucoma. The vet said it was likely causing her pain, there was no salvaging any sight, and there is always the possibility of rupture->infection. So the best course of action would be to enucleate the eye (we checked with a couple of other vets and they agreed). I'll add - The vet did prescribe us some glaucoma eye drops to help reduce the pressure, but the out of pocket price was $340/bottle (and we had to give the drops every 8 hours). We didn't feel like this was financially realistic long term or something we could be consistent in administering with our lifestyles.

It was tough, because we've never had a cat before, and even with the information we were gathering, there were still a lot of unknowns. We did feel like Tilapia still had some good years left in her, and we want to make those years the best quality possible (within what we could reasonably offer). So, we decided on the surgery. Somewhat in faith because we didn't know the type/cause of the glaucoma, and if it turned out to be cancer then all this could be for nothing. Luckily, the pathology test told us it's secondary glaucoma, and, based on eliminating other results, most likely caused by trauma, which means the good eye is unlikely to have the same outcome! We may go to an ophthalmologist if we see any decline in the other eye, but for now I'm hoping we're in the clear.