Don't you get email provided to you by your ISP?
Should be forwarding gMail stuff to that, or getting it downloaded onto your computer by a client like Thunderbird. gMail has IMAP, so it's not like it matters which you use because you'll know what's been looked at and replied too, etc.
Anyway, good to hear it's ok.
Also good to hear it wasn't someone hijacking.
I've had that happen to me by a guy that hijacked one of my domains before I moved it into one of my holding accounts. Fucker shut down the email account when he was done.