My poor cat is very sad

A few years back my cat had gotten a nasty infection of the gums that stemmed from an infection he got from a cut on his cheek during a fight with another cat.  He had the upper back teeth removed on one side because it was pretty nasty.  He got over this.

Fast forward to now and I noticed his teeth were getting a little yellowed and one in the back looked like it could become a problem, so I was planning to take him in for a clean.  The last week I've noticed him whimpering slightly when chewing.  He didnt do it all the time so I thought maybe one of the biscuits he was having was just stabbing at his gum in some way.  So I took him in today to get any issues sorted.

While there the vet looks at him and after a little inspection says to me 'His jaw seems to be broken'.  I'm like WTF?!  Says could of happened when biting down too hard on something.  My cat is 17 so I dont know if his bones are awesome anymore so I thought ok..  He gave me 3 choices.  Leave it and see if it heals, chances of that happening are slim.  Have him operated on and a wire used to hold the jaw in place to heal better, would cost over a grand.  Or put him down.  Obviously I went for door number 2.  He says theres a chance Kyo, my cat, might not make it through the anesthetic because of his age.  I told the doctor to worry about his side of things as I know how tough my cat is and thats not going to worry him.  He said he'd call me back in mid afternoon.

He calls me up later and says xray showed no break of the jaw.  It was an inflammation from a couple issues with his teeth on both sides.  The ended up having to remove all his back teeth and 1 of his fangs which had a hole in it.  I was aware of that hole but figured they never paid attention to it much so it could of been shallow.  I guess it was a problem too.

So yeah, you can imagine what an emotional stress thats been on me and obviously Kyo.  The stitches in his mouth will dissolve so thats cool, and I have to go back for a check up on thursday.  At the moment his mouth is a little swollen but that should sort itself out in the next couple days.  Poor guy has gone through way too many things in his life.  Dozens of vet visits.  This cost me almost $1200.  NOT fun when you havent been working for a while.  At least the people there say I'm one of a kind.  Most others would of opted to put him to sleep.  Not my cat.  I'm going to cling to him as long as I can.