Severus Died. Options

[Kitty Mom]

I haven't had to deal with this kind of pain since I lost my cat Petunia back in 2011. Unfortunately it happened again
I lost my black cat Severus on the 17th and I am devastated. I have no one who I can talk to and I'm finding it both difficult and comforting that everything else remains the same.
He had previously been diagnosed with a grade 2 heart murmur and my once 18 pound cat shrunk to 9 to 10 pounds.
Despite that he was always up to eat greet me or socialize with my other 2 cats Daisy and Patchabie.
I came home Feb 6 to find him open mouth breathing I didn't get him into the vets till the 10 where they did X-rays. I believed it would cost 600 dollars like it did at my other vets the first time his heart was checked. They only charged 160 I feel guilty that I didn't ask the price and get his heat looked at sooner. They couldn't see his heart because his lungs were fluid filled so they drained them on the 11 and placed him on Lasix. He was still having difficulty breathing so I brought him back to the vet on the 17 to have his lungs drained again . I waited in the waiting room as the secretary told me they had drained only one lung they were attempting to do the second but he was not happy. Turns out he ended up passing away during the procedure. I found out at the vets that he had dropped to 6 pounds when he was weighed on the 17 he was 7 apparently when they weighed him on the 10 or 11. They never told me he had lost the weight I knew he was light but I thought he was still 9 to 10 pounds . They also told me and showed me that the fluid in his lungs was tainted in blood.
I feel so guilty for not having his heart checked as I believe his murmur progressed into heart disease and killed him. I just thought it would cost 600 and Since I moved states I didn't have any savings left I couldn't afford that even for myself.
I also hadn't been giving him his atenolol though he did get part of a baby aspirin every 3 to 4 days to prevent clots. I thought he was doing ok without his atenolol but I should never have stopped giving it to him daily.
The night of the 16 he curled up next to me in bed and I was so positive he would beat this and live but I should have spared him the pain and put him down. He was just still active and talking to me so I was scared to make that choice if he could be saved.
I'm just missing him so much and feeling guilty and nobody around me cares that I hurt.

[Kitty Mom]

Just spoke with the vet who said Severus also had pretty bad off kidneys. That is a reason he could have gotten so thin. I was told that if I only gave him aspirin for his heart murmur every 3 days it shouldn't have caused his bad kidneys. His kidneys were fine Before he started aspirin and I'm so afraid I hurt him by forcing him to take it. I lost my cat Petunia to metacam back in 2011 now I have doubts that I didn't hurt Severus. I was giving him aspirin every 3 days up to the day he died.
Every bad thing that happened to him happened after he started aspirin.

aspirin started 2/21/13
Collapsed twice on and around 9/25/13 emergency vet said it wasn't seizures he had slightly elevated sugar that could have been stress and instructed me to keep giving aspirin.
11/5/13 to 11/9/13 he stopped eating and needed to be force fed.
Sometime in 2014 he lost all his muscle started vomiting .
I noticed after he died I didn't have to change the litter as much which means he was going a lot. I didn't know I just thought it was because I had 3 cats?

I feel so bad about this what if I made the wrong choice giving him aspirin and he could have lived longer without it?
I didn't want to give it to him at first but his vet insisted and said his back legs could go if I didn't.
I even posted something on here under a different user name asking about aspirin when I first started. I was so worried about it.
http://lightning-strike.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6877