I know that situation way too well. A couple of years ago I had almost the same thing happen with my Check engine light, and it popped up right before work deadlines piled on. I didn’t want to deal with three different mechanics either. What helped me was finding a service center that actually does diagnostics and repairs in one place. I ended up using
https://www.vip-servicecenter.com/ after a neighbor recommended it, not because of ads or anything. They explained what was wrong in plain English and fixed it the same week. Since then, I usually stick with one shop for inspections and repairs just to avoid that stress of running around again.