Heidi Ferrer.Photo: Heidi Ferrer/instagram
Heidi Ferrer’s husband is sharing details of his late wife’s experience withCOVID-19.
In aninterviewwith CNN published Wednesday, theDawson’s Creekwriter’s husband, filmmaker Nick Guthe, opened up about what she endured before her death.
Guthe said that Ferrer suffered fromlong-haul COVID symptomsthat included “excruciating, unexplained” pain in her feet, digestive problems, body aches and a racing heart. She also started to experience neurological tremors this spring, he told CNN.
Guthe described a harrowing journey before his wife was finally referred to a long-haul COVID clinic, which arrived just one day before her death.
Heidi Ferrer.Heidi Ferrer/instagram
Ferrer wrote on her blog last September that she had told Guthe that she did “not want to live like this” if her symptoms persisted.
“I wasn’t suicidal, I just couldn’t see any quality of life long term and there was no end in sight,” shewrote at the time.
“She had indicated that if things got really bad she didn’t know how she could continue,” Guthe told CNN on Wednesday. “She didn’t know how she could keep going, and I just kept saying, you know, ‘Just hang on, you know, hang on, medical science is moving at the quickest rate it ever has.”
He continued, “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.”
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Researchers are still learning more about COVID “long-haulers,” but a study released in March found thatwomen were more likely to experience long-term symptomsafter being diagnosed with the virus, PEOPLE previously reported.
Guthe urged others to take long-haul COVID symptoms seriously, and called on the “government to step in now and fund research right away and provide mental health support services for people like her.”
“We need to pay attention, and it’s not just about suicide,” he said. “It’s about people re-entering the workforce. This is an economic issue. We have trained people… who are not going to be able to go back to their jobs because they are exhausted, they are bedridden.”
Nick Guthe, Heidi Ferrer.Bryan Bedder/Getty
Guthe announced his wife’s death on Twitter May 26,writing, “My beautiful angel, Heidi, passed over tonight after a 13 month battle with Long Haul Covid.”
“She was an amazing mother,” he continued. “She fought this insidious disease with the same ferocity she lived with. I love you forever and I’ll see you down the road.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go tosuicidepreventionlifeline.org.
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source: people.com
