help! please.

You should check the smog laws in your state before removing the EGR valve. With the valve removed and a block installed, their is no flow through the EGR jets in the manifold, unless the manifold is cracked. The reason that I suggest checking the EGR valve is that you said the problem came on suddenly. A properly functioning EGR valve is closed when the engine is cold and doesn't open until it reaches operating temperature and should close at idle. If your valve opened and then failed to close properly due to carbon build up or damage, the engine would stumble or die at idle. Part of the smog inspection in California used to involve manually opening the valve at idle to see if the engine stumbled, if it didn't they knew the valve or the manifold jets had been blocked.