Head Gasket Blown in KY

Howdy-

I bought my 2014 Prius 4 for $12k in 2023 with 124k miles on it. 2 years and 20k miles later, my head gasket is blown. According to the shop I've taken it to (Barnes Auto Service in Louisville), misfires were mostly found on cylinder #2, substantial coolant pooling in the cylinder after only 30 minutes, noticeable trail running from head gasket line. Diagnosis: gasket may be fractured, head gasket needs to be replaced and heads inspected/resurfaced.
They've quoted me about ~6k to fix this. I'm a grad student and genuinely only have 6k to my name, and I've already paid 5k to get my cat replaced 48hrs after buying the car. I don't have any family to ask for loans from.

I'm hoping this forum can help me problem solve what to do here. There seem to be significantly less Prius mechanics around Louisville KY than the Bay Area, where I bought the car. A few mechanics I've called have told me the following options:
1) Replace the head gasket, resurface, potentially replace spark plugs. There's a shop I talked to in California (SK Prius repair) that quoted me 1.2k to do this, the fellow I talked to also discouraged me from just replacing the engine with a used engine because I'd likely just encounter the head gasket issue at 140k miles again, He said in the short term I can ask them to remove the O rig on the coolant cap as a short term (~1k miles) fix for the misfiring to release some pressure and prevent the coolant from leaking in to the cylinder. He also half-jokingly suggested I get the car towed from Kentucky to his shop (about $2k), which would still be 1/2 as much as what the diagnosing mechanic has quoted me. He also said that since my heating and AC work well, I probably don't need a water pump replacement.
Another mechanic I talked to in Louisville (Toyobrothers) told me they're very familiar with the problem and they don't do head gasket replacements anymore because they fail 50/50, he said they frequently have them fail again within a few months. I've read cleaning the EGR cooler and getting an OBDII scanner to monitor the engine heat can help a head gasket replacement remain successful, but I'm honestly not a mechanical person and I've never worked with an engine and don't really have any mentors in place so I'm not certain how hands-on I can be after maintenance.
2) Replace the engine. I talked to Oxmoor Toyota in Louisville and they gave me opposing advice: replace the engine with a remanufactured one from a company in Georgia called Jarco, he said he's worked with them 10yrs and trusts them but putting a frankenstein engine in my car seems pretty daunting. He was pretty insistent they don't replace gasket heads anymore because there can always be other underlying issues with the engine and especially ones at 100+k miles can encounter oil issues after a while (I've always done oil changes at 5k with the good stuff and previous owner did too) and I might need an engine replacement anyways. He hasn't quoted me for the job yet but he said he's get back to me tomorrow.

There are a few other mechanics in the Louisville area I'm hoping to call tomorrow, Autobeyours in IN, AutoAlternative in Nicholasville and Medley's in St Matthews. PLEASE, if anyone has any advice, recommended mechanics/local guys, temporary fixes I can do in the short term to just get to work and buy groceries, I really appreciate it.