Heidi Ferrer, a television writer who worked on Dawson’s Creek, died recently after a 13-month-long battle with the coronavirus. She was 50. Ferrer died on May 26 by suicide, her husband, writer Nick Guthe, wrote on Facebook. Guthe and Ferrer have a son, 13-year-old Bexon.
Ferrer, who was born in Salina, Kansas, is credited as the writer of two 1999 episodes of Dawson’s Creek, “Be Careful What You Wish For” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” according to her IMDb page. She also wrote an episode of Wasteland in 1999 and Black Scorpion in 2001. In 2008, she wrote the Paris Hilton movie The Hottie & The Nottie and the ABC Family movie Princess. She also began a successful blog, GirlToMom.com, in 2008 to share her son’s battle with progressive infantile scoliosis, reports Deadline. She spoke at the 2014 BlogHer Conference and received the Infantile Scoliosis Outreach Project‘s National Hero Award in 2010. The organization also named its annual Parent Initiative Award after Ferrer in her memory.
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Guthe shared the news of Ferrer’s death on May 27. “The excruciating physical pain and inability to sleep from the pain led Heidi to the decision she would rather leave this world on her own terms before her condition worsened more,” he wrote in a note published on GirlToMom.com. He decided not to share this detail on Facebook because many of Bexon’s friends’ parents followed Ferrer’s Facebook page. “As so many children are struggling with the mental stress of the Pandemic, we wanted to protect them without knowing how their parents might share it,” he wrote. “We are not hiding it as the mental strain of Long Haul Covid sufferers is a public health crisis that must be addressed quickly.”
He went on to describe how painful the past 13 months were for Ferrer. Long Haul COVID “took every part of her life away,” he wrote. Her mobility was limited, she had a restrictive diet, and she struggled to sleep and read. “I will not be able to check this blog regularly being a single father now, but I will keep it ‘live’ forever as a living document of who she was and what she believed in,” Guthe wrote.
Ferrer is survived by her husband, their son Bexon, her mother, Nancy Gilmore, and sisters Laura Ferrer0Schmidt and Sierra Summerville. Guthe asked that donations be made to the Infantile Scoliosis Outreach Project by clicking here.
