Our Five Year Old Pomeranian Needs Surgery

Our five year old pomeranian, Tedi Bear needs surgery for a severely collapsed trachia. Tedi is the first little dog we have ever had and such a sweet addition to our family! We are currently trying to maintain him on bronchial medication, but he has had two flare ups in the last month and a half and wound up back at the vet hospital. The estimated cost of surgery will be somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000. In this economy, we are unable to come up with that kind of money, but can come up with some of it though. Are there resources out there that I can look into that will help us out with this type of situation? Right now, I feel so helpless... it just tears me up.