They could not afford the vet bills (neither could we, but we paid them anyway). I'm not sure, but they may have been in the country illegally as well. I just took Tiger in and had her treated. It took a while because she had a congenitally blocked tear duct, so nothing helped until the vet got her tears flowing again in that eye.
Forevermore, every time we moved and perforce changed vets, the first question they asked of us was, "Has she ever been hit in the head?" because of her one wonky eye. We had to explain about the duct and the difficulty of the diagnosis. It did get much better as she got older, but it was always a bit off.
You can see that her right eye is just slightly smaller. It was worse when she was tired or upset.
She was such a lovey girl.