The True, Untold, Story of the Sunflower

Updated 9/11/22: Several changes made due to a request (video removed, Fox News article and blog post added, cleaned up a little, etc). Nothing has changed in terms of the facts of this story.

Heidi Ferrer was born in Salinas, Kansas and worked as a screenwriter on Dawson's Creek, Wasteland, as well as other shows. She moved to Los Angeles by the late '80s to pursue an acting career. A few years later, she pursued screenwriting. She sold her first spec, "The C Word," setting her down a path that would lead to her 24 years as a member of the WGA. Over her career, she sold screenplays and pitches and also did re-writes for major studios. Her 2008 movie, "Princess," for ABC Family did well for the network.

Heidi Ferrer

That same year, Ferrer continued to use her writing skills and she started a blog. She created GirlToMom.com (no longer up), to document her then-infant son's battle with progressive infantile scoliosis. In 2014, she was invited to speak at the BlogHer Conference. For her passionate advocacy, the Infantile Scoliosis Project honored Ferrer in 2010 with the National Hero Award. In her memory, the organization has named the annual Parent Initiative Award after her. Ferrer was a wife to a very supportive and caring husband Nick Guthe, who is a screenwriter, director, and producer, and a mother to her 13-year-old son, Bexon.¹ Heidi, by all indications, was an amazing mother, and a kind, funny, and creative soul based on those who knew her. Her life in LA seemed fantastic, until two things happened.

The first of those things was contracting Covid in April of 2020. This might not be a big deal for many, but a certain percentage of people, possibly as high as 30%, will get what's called Long Haul Covid.² Long Haul Covid is a form of Covid Infection that causes a person to remain ill for a prolonged period, months to even years. By June-July 2020 Heidi was having severe long haul symptoms. She experienced tachycardia, POTS, and other neurological problems, among other things. She was 90% bedridden during this period. In August of 2020, she began her slow and steady improvement that she mainly attributed to time and rest. Her gradual recovery would continue as she had a much more positive outlook by the end of 2020 and was able to hike. She's seen on social media looking healthier around Christmas time into January of 2021. Heidi had made a lot of progress with her Long Haul Covid. Her most difficult period in her Long Haul Covid Journey was June-July in 2020, which by February 2021 was way back in the rear view mirror. This begs the question, why was it largely reported her battle with Long Haul Covid led to her suicide?

After her death her obituary went viral. She was featured in many press publications. Some organizations even presented her as the poster child for Long Haul Covid. Heidi did want her story to get out there to help others, according to her husband, Nick Guthe, who has done a lot to tell her story. Still there is a problem that many Covid Long Haulers who interacted with her know. I analyzed 74 of those print articles discussing Heidi Ferrer's suicide (searched for at random). What was discovered was that only 1 mentioned her Moderna Covid Vaccination, and that 1 mention was merely saying the vaccine helps some long haulers feel better, but that it didn't help her. All 74 mention her Long Haul Covid Battle. Why is this concerning you may wonder? I'll tell you why.

It's concerning because the Moderna Covid Vaccine that Heidi received on March 8, 2021 is the main thing that led to her suicide. Many people in the Long Haul Covid Community knew Heidi and would read frequently speak with her. She spoke frankly and openly about her Covid Vaccine Injury. She stated point blank she was vaccine injured. If she didn't take the vaccine, she would likely still be alive. Remember she had improved greatly from Long Haul Covid from July 2020 to February 2021. For those who don't know, long haulers don't have a steady improvement over the course of 8+ months only to have a horrific sustained relapse for several months straight, progressing, getting worse and worse. That's not how it goes, without a trigger. Heidi not having fully recovered from Long Haul Covid was a factor, certainly. I'm not trying to diminish how horrible it is to experience Long Haul Covid or say that it hasn't caused people to commit suicide itself, but for Heidi it was a factor that would not have mattered had she not taken that Moderna Covid Vaccine. Let's go through a timeline of what happened to Heidi after her vaccination.

• March 8, 2021: Heidi gets 1st, and only, Moderna Covid Vaccination.

• March 2021: Bad flu like symptoms 3 days after Moderna vaccine. Some nerve inflammation.

• Other symptoms getting worse since the shot, but IBS gone.

• 1st dose of vaccine and felt 2.5 weeks of increased inflammation of symptoms, bad neuropathy, flares, & flu-like symptoms. Really worried. Skipping the 2nd dose.

• April 2021: Nausea she hadn't had since last summer.

• New severe anxiety & frizzing. The vaccine added fuel to fire. Autoimmune feelings.

• Fizzing in limbs, overwhelmed, brain fog, more intense anxiety, fatigue, vibrating tremors, weakness standing, & hand tremors. Much worse.

• April 17, 2021: Retweets "moderna you raggedy bit**. (You will have to scroll down her Twitter to see the retweet, @girltomom)

• Having dark moments. Tremors & vibrations, new symptoms.

• May 2021: Started improving from Long Covid 4.5-5 months into it. January 2021 was her best month for her health. New, worse symptoms frizzing/internal tremors or internal vibrations, trouble sleeping, much worse fatigue, and ovary pain that makes her afraid to urinate. Also, would get feeling of body squeezing & brain overwhelm. Hard to eat, on the edge of getting too thin. Never in her life did she struggle to eat. Was having dark thoughts that she associated with brain inflammation. Talked of ending it.

• Not functional.

• She is sure she's vaccine injured. Has new symptoms, outside of her past Long Haul Covid symptoms, and is much sicker. Tremors, body jerks, and vibrations started 6 weeks after her Moderna Covid Vaccine.

• May 22, 2021: Heidi's husband Nick comes home to find Heidi ...

• May 26, 2021: Heidi passes.

I feel for Heidi. To go through the severities of Long Haul Covid only to get significantly better from it, but then get vaccine injured afterwards is brutal. She must have experienced a lot of pain and suffering. Nick talks about Heidi's horrific struggles due to the Moderna Covid Vaccine in posts on Heidi's Blog, Girl To Mom (which is no longer up), tweets, and some of his comments are also featured in a Fox News Article, which is the only article I've found now, after analyzing more than the original 74, that's mentioned Heidi's vaccine injury.³ The article states:

In his post, Guthe noted that Ferrer had received a COVID-19 vaccine. "A lot of people with long-haul COVID have been told the vaccine might help them fight the virus," he elaborated to Fox News. "Unfortunately, in her case, it did just the opposite."

He shared that Ferrer "had been making progress." However, a few months later, "she could barely walk" and got "terrible neurological tremors," which Guthe described as similar to – but not exactly – "Parkinson's tremors."

In detailing Ferrer's life up to her death, Guthe stressed the importance of listening to patients and identifying which symptoms could be cause for concern among people living with long-haul COVID.

While Guthe pressed that he's "very pro-vaccine" and his son, who is 13, "will be receiving the second vaccine," the writer said he didn’t "necessarily think people with long-haul COVID should be rushing to get vaccinated."

"I think there's too much unknown about it," Guthe maintained.

Nick also says this in his beautifully and touchingly written eulogy to his wife on 9/19/21 which he wrote on Heidi's Blog: ⁴

Then in March we were able to get the vaccine with the hope it would help you get all the way back. Within weeks it was clear something was very wrong. The tremors started in your hands. Small at first. You told me other people in your groups were getting them too.

I’ll never forget you literally collapsing in my arms as your whole body shook, but only lasting for a minute or two, they seemed manageable. But then the vibrations started in your chest every night, robbing you of your sleep almost immediately.

I could see the shift in your outlook when this went on for more than a few days. A light was starting to dim. You were doubting a cure would come in time. I told you to hang on. That you, just existing, on our couch was enough for us. I didn’t care if we ever left our neighborhood again. You were enough.

Here is also a tweet where Nick refers to Heidi's Moderna Covid Vaccine Injury:

Why is Heidi's story about her Moderna Covid Vaccine Injury not being told in most places one looks? The media is definitely partly to blame. They treat the Covid Vaccines as if they are their God, and who wants to be critical of their own God. It's hard to know whether this extremely important part of the story is always known by the media and purposefully left out, didn't come up in the interview process, was not mentioned by those interviewed, or decidedly left out by those interviewed due to the controversy that comes along with even slightly criticising the Covid Vaccines publicly. We do know in the case of the New Yorker Article, which you will read about some below, the journalist, who is also a Medical Doctor, made the decision to omit Heidi's vaccine injury on purpose. You can read about that more fully in my blog post entitled "Media Leaves Out Heidi Ferrer's Vaccine Injury, Purposefully."

One factor in all this may well be Diana Berrent, the founder of the largest grassroots Covid Long Haul Facebook Group called Survivor Corps (founded on March 24, 2020). Berrent, who is now engaged to Nick Guthe, has been leading the charge to get Heidi's story out. She's posted many times about Heidi's death, has done interviews, and talked about Heidi in various venues. Diana is also a huge proponent of the Covid Vaccines. Her Facebook Group is well known to censor Covid Long Haulers speaking critically of the vaccines, even regarding their own experiences.

In an interview Diana did for The New Yorker on September 20, 2021, in which Heidi's suicide is mentioned minus her vaccine injury, she is asked: what she thought of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement that New York City would require proof of vaccination to dine indoors, use gyms, and attend Broadway shows. “Are you kidding me? I want a federal mandate,” she said. The way to get Americans vaccinated, she told me, was “to scare them about long covid. No twenty-five-year-old thinks they’re going to end up on a ventilator. But tell them they’re going to have erectile dysfunction, their teeth will fall out, and they’ll never go to the gym again? They’ll get vaccinated and they’ll be double-masked. You know what I mean?” Diana also speaks passionately to New Yorker Journalist about the struggles of long-haulers, the grief of families, and the vitriol of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers.⁵ Additionally, Diana has mentioned publically on her Twitter that she lied about her age in order to jump the line to get a Covid Booster (this is with her already having had mild Covid in the past plus multiple Covid Vaccine Doses, while not being at high risk). This should give you more of a glimpse about how enamored she seems to be with these Covid Vaccines. Perhaps she is a believer in the ends justify the means and not the other way around?

Is Diana running with the incomplete story of Heidi Ferrer in order to scare long haulers and others into getting vaccinated? I'm not sure, but Covid Long Haulers were incredibly traumatized when they heard of Heidi's death. They were sitting around wondering if the shoe would drop suddenly, like it did to Heidi, many not knowing the vaccine had caused Heidi's sudden worsening of her health, not her Long Haul Covid. That's wrong! Covid Long Haulers are stressed enough! People got physically sick from being worried they would end up like Heidi!

Berrent's responses are kind of dumbfounding, seeing as how she knows Heidi's story and knows her dreadful downturn occured right after getting the Moderna Vaccine. Heidi herself said she was vaccine injured and talked about her problems openly. Nick Guthe has also talked about Heidi's vaccine injury after her passing on several occasions. Diana still pushes forward with the narrative that Long Haul Covid caused Heidi's death when it was a combination, but frankly much more so the Covid Vaccine. Below you can see Nick talking through Diana about how The New Yorker left out Heidi's vaccine injury and speaking to someone else about Heidi's vaccine injury:

If Heidi didn't take the Covid Vaccine, she would very likely be alive now. What makes this worse is Heidi felt compelled to take the Covid Vaccine based on media reports of Covid Long Haulers improving after taking the Covid Vaccines. Those reports left out the fact that they were also making long haulers worse, which seems to happen more often than them feeling better from the vaccines. See how not telling the full story is actually harmful? Heidi was possibly killed by this exclusion of information. I wanted to honor her by adding in the details of her story that are usually left out, so others won't be harmed like she was. It's dangerous and a disservice not to tell the whole story!

In Diana's defense, her lack of understanding may come from not being a true Covid Long Hauler. She's probably not comprehending their struggles, issues, and justified concerns with the Covid Vaccines. I have to wonder if that's where her tone deafness comes from. After all, Covid Long Haulers and the Covid Vaccine Injured go through very similar experiences regarding gaslighting, symptomatology, etc, but if she's never truly experienced either, she wouldn't get it.

The moral of this story is don't believe everything you hear. Even if it's not fully a lie, you may not be getting all the facts so you can formulate a complete picture. It's lying by omission, and as you can see from Heidi's story, lying by omission may have been what killed her. Others are being harmed who are not getting Heidi's full tale, who may be in a similar position wondering if the Covid Vaccine will help them with their Long Haul Covid. The media too often doesn't tell the complete truth, and sometimes they outright lie. Also, sometimes people who head organizations will run with a story that helps to promote their cause, while they cling to their opinions at the same time, to influence people, but the ends don't justify the means. The fact that the cause you're fighting for may be good, just, and deserving much more attention, is not enough. When the whole story is not told, especially in a case like this, it's dangerous.

Thankfully Heidi's full story will now be more out there for people to read so that they can make educated decisions about their health, instead of having the information curated for them in an abridged manner by others with varying motives. May the Sunflower finally rest in peace.

Citations:

1. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/heidi-ferrer-dawson-s-creek-wasteland-writer-dies-50-n1271296

2. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220420/30-percent-of-covid-patients-in-study-developed-long-covid

3. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/dawsons-creek-heidi-ferrer-death-suicide-husband

4. https://web.archive.org/web/20220315143232/https://girltomom.com/

5. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/27/the-struggle-to-define-long-covid