Friends, family fighting for Ridgewood’s ‘Strong Mom’

Friends, family fighting for Ridgewood’s ‘Strong Mom’

NOVEMBER 10, 2014    LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014, 1:04 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

“I love you, too.”

In the past, Ridgewood resident Glenn Prettitore, like anyone, would not have thought much of hearing his wife Kerrie say this.

But in the past six months of showering Kerrie at her bedside with utterances of “I love you,” Glenn has only heard her say “I love you, too” twice.

Since a fight for her life began in the spring, 42-year-old Kerrie, a mother of three young children, is now barely verbal, after emerging from a recent coma.

Besides “I love you, too,” Kerrie – a graphic designer who loved ones described as a quietly strong, kind, and nonjudgmental neighbor, wife, friend, and avid snowboader – can just say “what,” “yes,” “no” and “OK,” and make occasional undistinguishable sounds.

“These things come out, she says them. Deep down, they’re there. In my mind, these connections are there… [but] I say it probably 100 times when I’m there, and I’ve heard it twice,” he said during a recent phone call before going to Kerrie’s bedside at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange.

This state of minimal consciousness is the result of a single administration in mid-March of the chemotherapy drug fluorouracil: Kerrie’s body was unable to break the drug down, since Kerrie, who was receiving the preventative chemotherapy after recovering from colon cancer surgery, also had a previously undiagnosed genetic disorder called DPD deficiency.

Before entering a coma, Kerrie had a severe and painful reaction to the chemotherapy, because, according to cancer researchers, the DPD enzyme is needed to break down the chemotherapy drugs fluorouracil and capecitabin.

https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/loved-ones-fighting-for-strong-mom-1.1130476

https://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/care-for-kerrie/160228