Cheryl Dean

Born: 7/11/79 - Overdosed : 10/05/97

    Cheryl was new in Centereach High School. Long Island,  New York. Cheryl was taking dancing lessons playing soft- ball  and she was in the Girl Scouts. She loved horses, deer and all animals, and wanted to become a Veterinarian.

    Cheryl  has two brothers Michael 14 and Billy 17.   She liked the group Smashing Pumpkins. She was 16 and a senior introduced her to heroin. She tried a rehab  but never completed it.

     When she turned 18 she went into  cardiac arrest and had an anoxic brain injury on  Oct 5,  1997.  She will be 20 on July 11, Cheryl still can't walk,  talk, move her legs or arms and is blind and on a feeding  tube. She also has severe spasticity. Even though she did  not die. I still feel as though I lost my beautiful daughter.  Or did I really loose her the day she started using heroin.  She does smile when I come to visit her, but I'm not sure she  knows who I am or who she is.

Cheryl when she was a child