Hello /wave

I'm sure many of us have been in the situation of stress/anxiety/guilt/worry about our little tripawd kitties when they're not feeling well. I know I am right now as I'm working to bring in my newest old man: Gandalf the Earl Grey. I adopted him last week after he had a rough patch before a kind Samaritan brought him to one of the local shelters. Aside from his mats and malnutrition, they noticed he was in pain from one of his hind legs, and made the decision to amputate it for his ease and comfort. This was two months ago and during his post-op healing he lived with a foster. He healed well and was motoring around fine with his remaining back leg in his little foster room, putting weight on it, hopping around, getting up and down with relative ease. The only issues he had were an on-off appetite with little interest in most foods and a one-time seizure occurrence which bloodwork and neurology follow-ups found nothing for the cause.

Enter me last week. I fell in love with him instantly. I've had cats all my life and have gone through medical ops with them. I brought him home last Wednesday and everything was going smoothly as planned. Gandalf has the living room to adjust into while my other cat Freja has the bedroom, closet, and bathroom. They're slowly meeting one another, a few cursory hisses here and there. He immediately started to eat consistently, adjusted to his new litterbox and space.

However, I noticed on Sunday he was having difficulty getting around and his backend losing balance. The imbalance was making it difficult for him to get and out of the litterbox, and his back foot was sensitive to my touch to which he would growl and pull it away: clearly a sign it was hurting. Since my living room is concrete with vinyl flooring, I rearranged his items to make him a smaller home base so his back foot wouldn't be hitting the hard surface too much until he built up more strength.
Monday, he started to struggle getting up the makeshift step I made from a box, lower than the ones he was using at his foster's. I had recently seen a TikTok of another cat who just had her hind leg amputated, and she was started on PT early on. So, it got me thinking Gandalf may need PT since he is starting to put on some weight and could benefit from core and leg strength to better support himself. That's when I stumbled upon Tripawds and looked through some of the resources provided and offered; I found a few rehab specialists in my area and bookmarked one who appeared to be an ideal fit.
Tuesday morning, I was so worried because Gandalf was starting to flatfoot his back foot when walking and would eventually resort to dragging it after a few steps. I rushed to buy a rug for his home base since the one I've been waiting on got backordered until the end of June. I stayed home for the morning to monitor him and contacted the rehab I bookmarked the day before: scheduled an expensive consult for next week. I called an emergency vet to ask about possibly bloodwork to see if his flatfoot is possibly related to CKD. After a bit of discussion with them, I decided to monitor him on my camera while I went to work for the afternoon, and take him to the emergency vet if I wasn't seeing much improvement in his choice of backfoot movements. To my relief, he was started to walk a little normal again with the carpet, so I decided the flooring must have been the issue and perhaps he strained or pulled a muscle on the hard vinyl flooring.
And now we come to today, Wednesday. Everything started well and Gandalf was doing quite well. I went to work and checked in on my camera a couple times. I watched him fall in an effort to get on his box because he's relying on mostly his upper body to pull himself up now, and then in shock and laughter, watched him assess his options and climbed up on the arm of my brand new couch (if only I knew, I would've purchased that pet damage warranty for it, haha). I come home to find he wasn't able to stand up his backend enough, so he had a little collection of squished poop smooshed on the edge of his cubby nest. I giggled about it as I cleaned up and decided to swap out his litterbox to one that isn't as deep. I dug around and found a collection of boxes to make him a set of stairs with various steps at lower heights. I noticed he was having a little bit of incontinence when scooting around, but have read a bit that can happen from the stress and straining of not being able to stand up: the bladder is squeezed during efforts of movement. He's still eating and drinking fine; he still wants constant cuddles; he's still trying to use his back leg when he moves around. If I catch him moving around, I try and help him do so with his leg under himself.

My mental state has been mostly positive these past days; readjusting Gandalf's accommodations to alleviate any pain until his consult and cleaning up after him without any disappointment or disgust since he can't help it; monitoring if I need to get him into an emergency vet. But...a few hours ago I completely broke down. I feel like a terrible cat mom because I can't just make him feel better instantly. I feel like I "broke" him and am wracked with tremendous guilt. Normally, I would just take him to the emergency vet to be safe, but because of the price for the consult and helping my friend pay for her cat's dental appointment next week, adding in a sudden emergency vet bill for an exam and follow-up tests or scans, is making that decision uncomfortably difficult. I haven't been able to get Gandalf set up with his pet insurance either yet because his general exam with his primary care vet isn't until next Friday.

Am I doing the right things in the meantime? Or could I do anything better?

Next week just can't come soon enough because I want to help my little Gandalf so much right now.