21 March, 2008. Spring?

I did get to speak with Rob's primary care physician. As I'd expected, there are of course no definitive answers to how and why he died when he did. It could have been...

Low blood sugar from which he couldn't rouse
Stroke
Another MI
Cardiac arrest which couldn't be rectified by the defibrillator
Aspiration of fluids
PE (pulmonary embolism)

Any, none or several of the above.

I checked his BG meter last night actually, from the last few hours before he died.

11:32 pm 87
12:04 am 68
12:44 am 95
1:05 am 126

Now...this might at first glance appear to be "within normal". For Rob though, 68 has produced unconsciousness (and, in fact, respiratory arrest on more than one occasion). If he had eaten a cookie or something to get it back up to 126, and then went to bed...it would have fallen again shortly thereafter.

Rob went to bed around 12:45, I think. I'm not entirely sure whether the last reading was taken by him, or by me as I was calling the paramedics.

Sigh.

None of this really means anything, in some ways; he's still gone, I still scream from excruciating emotional pain, I still cry every night, and I still miss him terribly.

One thing his doctor did say though, was that Rob made certain choices. He chose to smoke (up until his MI at least), and he chose to not follow a low sodium, low-fat diet. These did contribute to his illness, but it was admittedly a little strange hearing someone not emotionally invested in the situation actually saying, basically, "Look - some of this was his own doing, too, you know...".

I suppose it was to help assuage any guilt I was feeling.

Hmmm.