(no subject)
I apologize in advance to anyone who's just finding this out via my LJ or my Twitter. But it's something that should be known, and I really don't have any better way to do so. Also forgive me for this being pretty well fragmented & probably updated randomly as I think up more things, but.. well.. I'm not exactly in a good state of mind right now.
So.. I suppose I should do a report on what's happened recently... I'm not even sure where to begin.. But.. so last night I get into NYC to hang out with skyes for 10 days. Awesome, right? And it was! First meeting and we spend the entire day getting to know each other, and hanging out with morganbatness. We make arrangements with gldm to head up to his place the next morning so we can get him to a doctor; he had not been feeling well for some time and the latest bout of symptoms concerned the hell out of us. It didn't seem serious enough to warrant anything drastic so we bought tickets, and made a gameplan to head out there first thing in the morning.
So.. we get to the train station, make good time, and wind up in Albany. Get a cab, head over to gldm's place, and let ourselves in around 11:30 AM or so. Except.. his door was blocked. skyes forces the door, we figured he had perhaps passed out at the door. Hell, I've passed out in weird places when I'm super tired. Well.. that's.. not what happened. We figure last night perhaps he had another blackout, and.. hit his head falling down. He.. we're pretty sure he died before he even hit the floor. He had a hell of a bruise (and I'm recently told that he had a scabbed head injury in the same area) and was bleeding in one eye. Apparently he was complaning about an ocular migraine. skyes suspects he had a stroke. I'm just glad he went without any suffering.
It was really a shock. We had no idea.. we had no idea this was even possible. Not this way. It hurts. It.. it really hurts. I never really got the chance to get to know him properly.
.. I got a gift from him. A gift I was supposed to receive when I visited. An awesome green robe. It's going to take me weeks to be able to use it now. I can barely look at it without breaking down. I.. I can't wear it. Not now. Not yet. It's..
I'm going to miss him terribly.. Both of us are going to miss him terribly.. skyes moreso than me I imagine.
This is not how I planned to spend my vacation. But.. this was just completely unexpected. I guess on the one hand it's good that this happened during my visit. On the other hand, I'd give anything to start the whole trip over... Get to NY, book a train to Albany for both of us, and drag his ass to the hospital as soon as we got there.
This is.. going to complicate the hell out of all my plans. I'm still going to move eastward. I'm going to do my best to get out there before the end of the year. ...I just don't know how I'm going to manage it anymore.. I was supposed to move in with him towards the end of the year until we either found a better place, or I found a place of my own. That's.. obviously not happening anymore.
I think tomorrow we'll get the chance to say goodbye to him. I hope so; I would love to have the chance before it's too late. ...even though it is technically too late.. It will help so much.
Skyes is receiving quite a bit of support from family & friends, and myself, so that's good. I'm going to do my best to help her through this. It's the least I can do. Even though I have no idea what the hell to do..
For now we're holed up in a hotel for the night. We need to stay in the city for a day or two to take care of things. We had the option of staying at his place, but.. I knew that was a bad idea. I thought I was doing it for skyes, but.. I may be doing it for myself. Maybe both of us. Either way, it just wasn't an option.
Part of me is absolutely pissed that the EMTs didn't do anything for him when they arrived. But.. honestly, maybe there wasn't anything they could have done for him. Maybe if we had managed to show up last night when we got word that he was suffering some possible bronchitis or something. ...but it wouldn't have done us any good if he died shortly after ending the call. 3 hour trip from NYC to Albany by public transit/Amtrak.
I wound up going through his laptop to see if we can get any contact info of people who should really know about this, and noticed some concerning browser tabs he had opened. We knew he was doing research on some of his medication to see if they were causing his problems. He had been really sick the past few months. He was getting better though! Now and then going through a really bad turn, but he was doing good. The last few tabs.. the last few tabs I think were opened prior to his death. He was looking up ways to slow a sudden rapid beating heart. From what I can piece together he went to the bathroom, then maybe went for something to eat, and.. then it hit. Regardless of how it happened, it seemed sudden. Too sudden to react in time. I saw him lying there.. He looked like it had taken him by surprise. But I suppose if one's going to go, that's the best way to go. Without knowing it. I just wish it could have been old age that took him instead of.. this :C
3/16/2011 EDIT: There's a nasty rumor going around that he had died as a result of contracting HIV. It is merely that however. Just a rumor. There's no hard evidence that he did have it and his recent partners, including my girlfriend skyes who has been with him for around a year now, have all tested negative. We will have a cause of death later today some time tomorrow when they eventually perform the autopsy which I'll post here in another edit, and will likely have a tox screening coming in in a few weeks or so if they do one. I will also post that if/when I or Skye get the results of that.
3/17/2011 EDIT: Something I think should be announced for those wondering. First off, still waiting on autopsy report. No idea how long that'll be. Second, I know some people have been asking about a funeral. There will be no funeral. There will likely be a gathering of friends at some point in the near future in NYC, but date/time/location is up in the air at this point. He will be cremated likely tomorrow or Saturday; the funeral home is going to push for tomorrow evening but it may take a couple days. The remains will be going back with his father.
EDIT: We got preliminaries back. The coroner said that the most likely cause of death was bi-pulmonary pneumonia. He did have fluid in his lungs, we knew that much when we found him. Skye and I believe however that if it did contribute to his death, he had not suffered. Given he was having blackouts we think he most likely blacked out and didn't feel any suffering.
Final Edit: This will be the last update I post to this entry, save for if/when we get the detailed test results back in 2 months. We received gldm's ashes around 10:30 yesterday morning. Skye was given the honor of holding his ashes pretty much from the moment we got them up to the point we got to the hotel an hour later (had to pick up a minivan for his belongings.) I thought that was extremely nice of his father to do that for her. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to.. I shouldn't say I didn't get a chance because honestly I did, but I was so busy with everything that by the time I realized I hadn't said goodbye to the physical aspect of him, it was too late. My own fault however. As nice as it would have been, I don't really think I need to. I'm still saddened by it but it's my fault and there's nothing else I can do but move on. Anyway, we got him, went to pick up the minivan and then headed over to the apartment. Very good thing we wound up with a minivan where all the seats folded down because we used up every square inch of space we could find. Seriously. We had to pack some of the clothes and towels last because we had to stuff each individual item into any space we could find. The only thing we were unable to cram in there was a $4 office chair. Not exactly a major loss. Regardless, we got everything we needed to get &
So.. I suppose I should do a report on what's happened recently... I'm not even sure where to begin.. But.. so last night I get into NYC to hang out with skyes for 10 days. Awesome, right? And it was! First meeting and we spend the entire day getting to know each other, and hanging out with morganbatness. We make arrangements with gldm to head up to his place the next morning so we can get him to a doctor; he had not been feeling well for some time and the latest bout of symptoms concerned the hell out of us. It didn't seem serious enough to warrant anything drastic so we bought tickets, and made a gameplan to head out there first thing in the morning.
So.. we get to the train station, make good time, and wind up in Albany. Get a cab, head over to gldm's place, and let ourselves in around 11:30 AM or so. Except.. his door was blocked. skyes forces the door, we figured he had perhaps passed out at the door. Hell, I've passed out in weird places when I'm super tired. Well.. that's.. not what happened. We figure last night perhaps he had another blackout, and.. hit his head falling down. He.. we're pretty sure he died before he even hit the floor. He had a hell of a bruise (and I'm recently told that he had a scabbed head injury in the same area) and was bleeding in one eye. Apparently he was complaning about an ocular migraine. skyes suspects he had a stroke. I'm just glad he went without any suffering.
It was really a shock. We had no idea.. we had no idea this was even possible. Not this way. It hurts. It.. it really hurts. I never really got the chance to get to know him properly.
.. I got a gift from him. A gift I was supposed to receive when I visited. An awesome green robe. It's going to take me weeks to be able to use it now. I can barely look at it without breaking down. I.. I can't wear it. Not now. Not yet. It's..
I'm going to miss him terribly.. Both of us are going to miss him terribly.. skyes moreso than me I imagine.
This is not how I planned to spend my vacation. But.. this was just completely unexpected. I guess on the one hand it's good that this happened during my visit. On the other hand, I'd give anything to start the whole trip over... Get to NY, book a train to Albany for both of us, and drag his ass to the hospital as soon as we got there.
This is.. going to complicate the hell out of all my plans. I'm still going to move eastward. I'm going to do my best to get out there before the end of the year. ...I just don't know how I'm going to manage it anymore.. I was supposed to move in with him towards the end of the year until we either found a better place, or I found a place of my own. That's.. obviously not happening anymore.
I think tomorrow we'll get the chance to say goodbye to him. I hope so; I would love to have the chance before it's too late. ...even though it is technically too late.. It will help so much.
Skyes is receiving quite a bit of support from family & friends, and myself, so that's good. I'm going to do my best to help her through this. It's the least I can do. Even though I have no idea what the hell to do..
For now we're holed up in a hotel for the night. We need to stay in the city for a day or two to take care of things. We had the option of staying at his place, but.. I knew that was a bad idea. I thought I was doing it for skyes, but.. I may be doing it for myself. Maybe both of us. Either way, it just wasn't an option.
Part of me is absolutely pissed that the EMTs didn't do anything for him when they arrived. But.. honestly, maybe there wasn't anything they could have done for him. Maybe if we had managed to show up last night when we got word that he was suffering some possible bronchitis or something. ...but it wouldn't have done us any good if he died shortly after ending the call. 3 hour trip from NYC to Albany by public transit/Amtrak.
I wound up going through his laptop to see if we can get any contact info of people who should really know about this, and noticed some concerning browser tabs he had opened. We knew he was doing research on some of his medication to see if they were causing his problems. He had been really sick the past few months. He was getting better though! Now and then going through a really bad turn, but he was doing good. The last few tabs.. the last few tabs I think were opened prior to his death. He was looking up ways to slow a sudden rapid beating heart. From what I can piece together he went to the bathroom, then maybe went for something to eat, and.. then it hit. Regardless of how it happened, it seemed sudden. Too sudden to react in time. I saw him lying there.. He looked like it had taken him by surprise. But I suppose if one's going to go, that's the best way to go. Without knowing it. I just wish it could have been old age that took him instead of.. this :C
3/16/2011 EDIT: There's a nasty rumor going around that he had died as a result of contracting HIV. It is merely that however. Just a rumor. There's no hard evidence that he did have it and his recent partners, including my girlfriend skyes who has been with him for around a year now, have all tested negative. We will have a cause of death later today some time tomorrow when they eventually perform the autopsy which I'll post here in another edit, and will likely have a tox screening coming in in a few weeks or so if they do one. I will also post that if/when I or Skye get the results of that.
3/17/2011 EDIT: Something I think should be announced for those wondering. First off, still waiting on autopsy report. No idea how long that'll be. Second, I know some people have been asking about a funeral. There will be no funeral. There will likely be a gathering of friends at some point in the near future in NYC, but date/time/location is up in the air at this point. He will be cremated likely tomorrow or Saturday; the funeral home is going to push for tomorrow evening but it may take a couple days. The remains will be going back with his father.
EDIT: We got preliminaries back. The coroner said that the most likely cause of death was bi-pulmonary pneumonia. He did have fluid in his lungs, we knew that much when we found him. Skye and I believe however that if it did contribute to his death, he had not suffered. Given he was having blackouts we think he most likely blacked out and didn't feel any suffering.
Final Edit: This will be the last update I post to this entry, save for if/when we get the detailed test results back in 2 months. We received gldm's ashes around 10:30 yesterday morning. Skye was given the honor of holding his ashes pretty much from the moment we got them up to the point we got to the hotel an hour later (had to pick up a minivan for his belongings.) I thought that was extremely nice of his father to do that for her. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to.. I shouldn't say I didn't get a chance because honestly I did, but I was so busy with everything that by the time I realized I hadn't said goodbye to the physical aspect of him, it was too late. My own fault however. As nice as it would have been, I don't really think I need to. I'm still saddened by it but it's my fault and there's nothing else I can do but move on. Anyway, we got him, went to pick up the minivan and then headed over to the apartment. Very good thing we wound up with a minivan where all the seats folded down because we used up every square inch of space we could find. Seriously. We had to pack some of the clothes and towels last because we had to stuff each individual item into any space we could find. The only thing we were unable to cram in there was a $4 office chair. Not exactly a major loss. Regardless, we got everything we needed to get &