Cat injury - advice until we can contact our vet?

Question
My cat's back paw is severely swollen - about double the size of the others. He also will not stretch it out, not even to walk, and there seems to be quite a bit of blood coming from it but we cannot see it as he won't let us stretch out his leg.

He is an outdoor cat, about a year and a half old. Long-haired. Easily irritated so he will gladly scratch us to pieces before letting us see the wound.

Unfortunately we cannot contact our vet at this time, so I would like to know if there is anything we can do in to meantime and what the problem may be.

PS, there was a lot of blood on the driveway this morning: whether this is from the cat or a victim of the cat we don't know, but it is A LOT of blood.
He is also doing everything normally, e.g. using the toilet, eating, drinking.

Answer
Amanda,

How long will it be before you can contact your vet because this is potentially something that could result in a serious local (foot and leg) or systemic (throughout the whole body) infection if he's got an abscess or a foreign body lodged in his paw - this is not the kind of thing that I would suggest leaving for any extended period of time because it has the potential to be quite serious depending on what is going on.... The bottom line is that without knowing what is going on this should be considered a relatively urgent matter and the cat should be seen by a qualified vet within 24 hours because if things progress too far the cat stands to lose his leg or even his life due to complications of infection... Trust me when I say, the vet bill you'll pay now is nothing compared to the potential ones if this wound festers and becomes severely infected.

If this is a matter of waiting til your vet opens in the morning then I'd say just wait, don't give your cat any food overnight because if he is as touchy about being handled as you say the vet will want to sedate him and you don't want him vomiting under sedation as that could be potentially fatal...

Hopefully this information is helpful. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me again at any time - I'm more than happy to help in any way that I can.

Kind regards,

Ali