I dont know how to really put this im confused about the death of my hamster

Question
My boyfriends brother got this hamster back in October of 2006 because his friend couldn't take care of it but turned out the brother couldn't really take care of him either so he gave it to his brother and me i never had a hamster before so he was my first i was a little scared at first but i fell in love with him so quick! okay anyway not to babble anymore first thing i noticed about Squeakie(hamster) he had a sort of crusted skin on his testicles i couldn't find a vet in my area that specialized in small animals such as hamsters and i heard many stories of vets over dosing them when they put them down to check them out that i was scared to take him to any vet so i took him to Monster Pets where i talked to a lady who knew alot about hamsters and she told me to put neosporin on his area but by that time it was all over his ears too so i did what she told me and it started clearing up within the next two days besides that i came home from work one day to find he was all back up with poop in his rectum i was very scared at that point but i got it out it happened alot but i talked to the lady again and she said i had to feed him plain hamster food/diet because it might have been that his little tummy couldn't take all the veggies in his food so i bought hamster diet from kaytee brand he was eating that for about a month ... i also forgot he was a little on the lazy side he paid no mind to his wheel except for sleep and he used to fall asleep doing just about anything i thought at one point he was narcoleptic .. okay so after he ate the the new food it bursted his energy alot he was more active his skin problem cleared up a bit more also and he wasn't backed up anymore i thought his problem was solved until Friday night i went to feed him and my other hamster i noticed squeakie was asleep i didn't think anything of it because he liked to sleep i thought it was normal until i went to pet him he'll usually jump up but this time he didn't so i tried petting him i thought maybe it was a deep sleep i didn't really want to startle him but he was moving yet he was breathing i picked him up and noticed he was cold so i wrapped him in one of my warmest socks and was holding him my boyfriend had told me that hamsters go in a state of hibernation when they get to cold and we had just had a big drop in the weather it went from 60 to 25 in 2 days he also said that he read to warm him up and he'll wake up on his own so i brought his cage near a heater and left him in the sock overnight just to make sure he was nice and warm come the next morning he passed away i don't know why i'm very hurt about my loss and not knowing what caused this i tried my best every time he had a problem i just wish i could of done more for him and i know people say hamsters are disposable animals but i don't believe that he was part of my family and i want to make sure i do my best for my other hamster. I'm sorry i wrote a book here but i wanted to explain it the best i could so you could understand my problem.

Answer
Thank you so much for being so detailed. It really helps me understand the situation better. It sounds like the hamster had a few problems before you got him like not being taken care of properly by his previous owners. I think he was sick when you got him. You had mentioned a crusty look on his testicles. That could have been one of many problems that he had and him always being sorta sleepy until you fed him a good diet tells me that he probably didn't have a good nutrition before you got him so that could also contribute to him dieing so young. The point I'm trying to make is it's not your fault he died. You gave him a better home than anyone else could and when you got him you gave him a better chance at life. The malnutrition and not being taken care of properly can easily take away from a hamsters life since they are so small. You tried to make him better and more active and you achieved that. You didn't do anything wrong, you did everything right. There was nothing more you could do, you didn't have a small animals vet near you and that really limitied your options so you did everything a human being could do. You should be happy that his last few months were the happiest he's had and he died in the loving care of someone who cared for him and made him happy.