Dawson’s Creek and Wasteland writer Heidi Ferrer was afraid her long-haul COVID-19 would turn her into an invalid before she committed suicide following a 13-month battle with the virus, her husband said on Wednesday.
A month ago, Heidi Ferrer, 50, took her own life at her home in Los Angeles, California. She had been bedridden and riddled with excruciating pain since she contracted the virus in April 2020.
Her husband, director Nick Guthe, told CNN that it took months for doctors to diagnose her ailments and get a referral for a long-haul Covid clinic, which arrived a day before she died.
‘She had indicated that if things got really bad she didn’t know how she could continue, she didn’t know how she could keep going, and I just kept saying, you know, “Just hang on, you know, just hang on, medical science is moving at the quickest rate it ever has,”‘ Guthe said.
‘But I think she just felt that she was only going to diminish, she was going to lose the ability to walk, end up in a wheelchair, not be able to bathe herself.’
Through Guthe and his family’s tragedy, he’s urged everyone who’s suffering like his wife did to hang on.
‘I believe that help is on the way, but we need our government to step in now and fund research right away and provide mental health support services for people like her,’ he told CNN.
The mother-of-one suffered body aches, including severe pains in her feet and ankles, fatigue and flu-like symptoms when she tested positive for COVID in April 2020.
Her symptoms worsened, and by June she was bedridden. Over the following months, Ferrer’s fatigue and foot pain remained but she also became crippled with neurological tremors.
In a heartbreaking blog post that she penned back in September titled ‘How I’m recovering from long haul COVID’, Ferrer detailed how the virus had crippled her but declared that ‘COVID won’t win’.
Director Nick Guthe said his wife Heidi Ferrer, pictured here at the premiere of ‘Mini’s First Time’ during the 5th Annual Tribeca Film Festival on May 1, 2006 in New York City, was in excruciating pain for 13 months with long-haul COVID before she killed herself
Guthe posted photos of their wedding on Facebook with the message, ‘I miss her’
Heidi Ferrer, 50, took her own life on May 26 at her home in Los Angeles, California following a lengthy battle with COVID-19, her family said
‘The monster is real and it came for me. Recovering from COVID-19 has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through and I’ve been through a lot,’ she wrote.
‘In my darkest moments, I told my husband that if I didn’t get better, I did not want to live like this. I wasn’t suicidal, I just couldn’t see any quality of life long term and there was no end in sight.
‘One of the cruelest things COVID did to me was to take away my ability to have dreams. I don’t mean dreams in my sleep, I mean I completely stopped dreaming about my future because I couldn’t picture it. It was a wall.
‘Yes, everyone had lost our trips, our events, our free lives during the shutdown, but I had lost all of that and also became suddenly crippled with scary neurological programs.’
Ferrer told those going through similar long-haul struggles with COVID that they could all pull through together and urged them never to give up.
‘I believe this in my bones: If you are suffering from this monster, you will eventually make it out, we will heal,’ Ferrer wrote.
‘Slowly, almost inexorably, sometimes glacially… we are recovering. It’s just that no one knows for sure how long it might take, maybe six months, maybe a year.’
Ferrer detailed how her condition started to improve in August and that she had longer stretches of good days.
The mother-of-one contracted the virus in April 2020 after experiencing body aches, including severe pains in her feet and ankles, fatigue and flu-like symptoms. She is pictured above in her last family photo with husband Nick Guthe and 13-year-old son Bexon
Her husband Nick Guthe, who is a screenwriter, director and producer, revealed news of her death on social media following the 13-month battle
Heidi’s husband posted this photo taken three months before her death. Her condition is believed to have deteriorated rapidly in the last few months
‘I now believe that I will still have more ‘waves’ of symptoms and bad days, but it feels like it’s happening every month now instead of every 1-2 weeks,’ she said.
‘My loose timeline is that about two weeks after the first symptoms mid-April, I had COVID toes May 1st, then one month later succumbed to 2 months of crippled pain from hell, then I began to slowly heal.
‘I had a turning point at 12 weeks, then a much bigger one at 16 weeks, and I’m expecting to be much better in two months, 6 months from the symptom onset. Fingers crossed.
‘Time will tell, but I’m focusing on being wildly optimistic. COVID won’t win.’
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At the end of her blog post, Ferrer wrote: ‘I’m not out of the woods yet, but I see a clearing.’
Her condition is believed to have deteriorated rapidly in the last few months.
Her husband Nick Guthe, who is a screenwriter, director and producer, revealed news of her death on social media following the 13-month battle.
‘She fought it like she lived, ferociously, but in the end it was relentless and took away everything from her,’ Guthe wrote in a Facebook post.
Ferrer was a career scriptwriter who penned several episodes of the hit 90s shows Dawson’s Creek and Wasteland, as well as several films.
In recent years, she became an avid and well-known blogger.
She is survived by her husband Nick and their 13-year-old son Bexon.
In a heartbreaking blog post that she penned back in September titled ‘How I’m recovering from long haul COVID’, Ferrer detailed how the virus had crippled her but declared that ‘COVID won’t win’. She is pictured above in September last year when she said her condition was improving
