Pay Gunther's emergency vet bills and euthanasia

I adopted the most perfect 12-year-old abandoned cat almost exactly 2 years ago. Except for some very early stage kidney disease, which had not so far progressed, he was in remarkably good health, and the sweetest, softest, best little guy. Even when he was being a jerk.

(His default expression, no matter how loudly he was purring or how happy he was. Feline Resting Bitch Face, he can't help it!)

This past Sunday morning, I woke up and he did his usual morning routine of climbing on top of me and laying on my chest while I petted him and he purred his head off. Then we both got out of bed, he went to hang out in his usual spot under a little table in the living room to wait for breakfast, and I went in the bathroom to wash my face for a minute. No more than 3 minutes later, I came out, and he was no longer in the living room. I looked around, checked the bedroom, and suddenly the little cubby he sometimes naps in, in the corner of the room, started shaking from side to side and he started yelling. He flopped/dragged himself out and continued yelling, and it appeared his right back leg was not working at all. Meanwhile, he got himself flopped into a corner under another small table, and eventually quieted down while I frantically called the emergency vet. At the time, I thought he had caught his claw on the blanket in his cubby the wrong way and dislocated something, or pulled a muscle, something like that. I managed to get him to scoot out enough to pick him up, and put him on the bed, and he calmed down some while I waited for a friend with a car to help take us to the vet.

The vets quickly ruled out any of the things they suspected (aortic embolism, some kind of trauma), and recommended taking him to a different clinic that had a neurologist vet who could do an MRI. Expensive, but there were possible things that could have been causing it that were fixable, and he could have lived for another 2, 3, 5, or even more years. I felt like I had to at least find out what was going on, even if the end result would not be fixable. So he spent a night at the new clinic, and was seen by the neuro on Monday. Unfortunately...it was not good. He had a freak thing where without any injury or trauma, a cat can move in just the right way and cause a disc in their spine to, rather than dislocate out of place, instead shoots directly up into the spinal column. The neuro vet said he had some of the most extensive spinal bleeding she had ever seen. There was no fix for this. At best, we could have tried providing supportive care to see if he improved at all, but she thought the best-case result would be getting a few more weeks, which would have been logistically nightmarish and painful and confusing for Gunther. So I asked if he could stay overnight once more at the clinic, and I would pick him up on Tuesday morning and then have the in-home end-of-life vet (Peaceful Pet Transitions, I cannot recommend them highly enough, they are amazing) come to my apartment an hour or so later to administer euthanasia.

I'm very glad I brought him home for his final hours, and he was clearly happy to be somewhere familiar, too. His death was as peaceful as it could have been under the couple of days of traumatic circumstances. I don't regret trying to help him, and I would absolutely do it again.

But. Now I have lost my friend (the vets always referred to me as "Gunther's owner", but I preferred to think of myself as his personal valet) while having nearly $9000 in credit card bills from vet expenses that I will take literal years to be able to pay off, since I take home just over $2200/month at my (great, so much better than any I have had in the past 20 years, tbh) job, and I have my own chronic illness medical expenses to deal with already.

I have no idea if any of this will resonate with anyone, but if you are able to help even a tiny bit, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you!