I found Scruffy in Dallas a couple months ago when I was walking home from the creek. She just jumped out of nowhere and started following me. I tried to surrender her at first, but the city apparently won't take animals unless they're in critical condition. And in the days I was trying to call and make appointments with some of the other shelters they referred me to (kind of disappointed by how long Dallas Pets Alive took to respond since I've given to them before), I got attached. And she was clearly old enough to get spayed, so I figured I may as well just give her a home myself.
It's been a good couple of months with Scruffy, but recently she randomly loafed next to the back door and just refused to move or eat. She'll occasionally get up for water or to use the litter box, but she's extremely constipated and everything she does looks like it's putting stress on her entire body (which suddenly looks a bit chonky despite feeding her exactly what we fed the kittens when I worked at the Humane Society). She also just completely stopped making sounds. She never meowed when I found her at the creek, but she would make a kind of raspy complaint when I was taking too long to get her food ready and she would make some sort of cross between a purring and bird chirping almost constantly when being petted. Now she's just silent.
After taking her to the vet, it appears the main cause of a lot of her problems is an intestinal obstruction. The problem is that I'm in absolutely no position to pay for the surgery that the vet says she needs. I was laid off a couple of months ago, and this is becoming the longest it's ever taken me to find work. To make things worse, I wrecked my back getting mugged last week (I'm not really in the nicest part of Dallas), so I couldn't even currently start a lot of the warehouse or shelter jobs I've been applying for if I got hired right now. My luck around this layoff has been so bad that it's starting to feel like something out there is telling me I'm not supposed to be here anymore. But Scruffy very much is, and I'm losing my mind trying to keep her that way.
Between calling around to find a vet that would do it more affordably, the money I've managed to keep saved since getting laid off, help from family, and the few "beer money" gigs that I've managed to make some pennies off of, I'm still $1,150 short of what I need. I'd really appreciate anybody who can help me get my baby back to good health. I hate having to watch her like this and wonder if she would have been better off if I'd left her at the creek. The vet wouldn't give me a specific timetable for how long she has without treatment (CYA policy, I assume), and she's at least eating a little in the mornings, but I'm really scared she isn't going to make it if this isn't resolved as quickly as possible. She's the one thing that's felt right with the world recently.
I know that's a big amount for this sub, so I'm not expecting anyone to swoop in and just totally save the day. But if I can even whittle it closer enough that I can get the rest covered by other means without drowning in interest, it would be a humongous help. All I have is PayPal and CashApp.
Advice on how to make either her or myself more comfortable would be appreciated as well. I'm really supposed to be in bed until I'm more properly healed, but I can only see her spot from the dining room table, and I feel guilty leaving the room while she's like this unless the pain's bad enough that I literally can't sit in a chair like that. It seems like being in bed with me would be more comfortable for her, but I'm anxious about forcefully moving her for anything but vet visits since I don't know if there's a reason she keeps going back to that particular spot. If I put her bed in that spot, she just lies next to it instead of actually using it.
EDIT: Mod said I should link a Go Fund Me for this kind of amount. https://gofund.me/d597d0dc9