Woman Died in Hospital in Reading Pennsylvania
Deanna Reber could have moved up. She could have gotten out of the intensive intendance unit.
A Reading Hospital nurse for 29 years, a career with a listing of accolades her husband said would likely stretch on for miles, Deanna had endless possibilities for advancement at her fingertips. But she was happy correct where she was.
"One matter that always stood out to me about her was that she had plenty of opportunities to take on a higher-paying position, something in administration or management," her daughter, Kelseyleigh Hepler, said. "She never wanted to do that because she wanted to exist right at the bedside. She had a passion for her patients and a passion for her boyfriend nurses."
Not even a global pandemic, 1 that posed a dire risk to a adult female who had survived cancer a decade ago and was taking a variety of medications for other weather that weakened her immune system, could change that.
Her patients needed her now more than ever, her fellow medical professionals had to have her help and support.
Deanna forged on, standing her work in the intensive care unit where she had toiled for more than 25 years. She knew the risk, Kelseyleigh said, simply was unflinching in her dedication.
"She definitely went into piece of work every day knowing the reality of the situation," Kelseyleigh said. "At any signal she probably could have gone to a supervisor and said she didn't experience comfortable. Simply that's not something she would practise."
In April, Deanna was diagnosed with COVID-19, even afterwards being vaccinated. After months of ups and down, of alternating moments of hope and despair, she lost her boxing with the deadly disease on Sept. 4.
Deanna was 15 days brusk of her 51st birthday. Her dying wish was that everyone go the COVID vaccine.
"Deanna'southward dying wish was that anybody go vaccinated so we can protect our loved ones from COVID-nineteen."
— from the obituary
Loving and giving
John Reber couldn't help but grin.
As he stood on a stage inside the Thun/Janssen Auditorium at Reading Infirmary on Midweek evening, looking out at the crowd that had gathered for his wife's memorial service, his smile was sly yet heartfelt.
He told the story most how he and Deanna first started dating, when he worked for a local playground arrangement and Deanna worked as a summertime playground leader.
In that location were lots of parties that summertime, John said, and at one he sat down at a table beside Deanna. He looked into her gray-green optics and made his motility, reaching below the table to grab her hand.
John looked down, just to realize Deanna'southward other hand was being held by another guy.
"I idea, 'She'due south non going abode with that loser. She'southward going dwelling house with this loser,' " he said every bit those gathered for the ceremony laughed.
He was right.
Inside six months the pair were engaged. John said there was no demand to expect any longer, he realized what he had institute.
"I knew what a treasure I had," he said.
The couple would end up setting up store in Wyomissing, where they raised iii children: Kelseyleigh and her two brothers, Ryan and Kyle.
John speaks about his wife with reverence. He speaks with the vocalisation of someone who knows the joy of falling in love with a truly special person, and having that honey returned.
And Deanna was clearly someone capable of expressing love. In fact, John said, it was all she ever did.
"She was very giving. Information technology was never about her," he said. "It was always virtually someone else who needed to exist taken care of. She was a giver."
Her caring nature didn't brand her a pushover, withal. Deanna could be vehement when she needed to be, specially when it came to her three children.
"She was a momma bear, very protective," Kelseyleigh said.
Kelseyleigh said her mom was assuming and straightforward, the kind of person you knew would always requite you lot an honest answer when you asked her a question. She was a adult female of focus and dedication.
"Any she was doing, she was all in," Kelseyleigh said. "She never did anything one-half heartedly."
That was true for how she handled motherhood, nursing and even her hobbies. An gorging fleck-booker and tackler of do-it-yourself projects, her home was overstuffed with crafting supplies.
"Friends would visit and say they're visiting A.C. Moore when they came to our firm," her daughter said with a laugh.
Deanna likewise didn't hold dorsum when it came to another of her passions: travel.
"She was a big traveler. She liked to travel outside of the land," John said. "She loved the blue water. She always took pictures of her toes in the sand. She was proud of her toes."
Many of Deanna's travel adventures were with Kelseyleigh, who said her mom liked to "piggy back" on her trips. The pair fabricated a point to accept a mother-daughter trip at least once a yr.
Photograph courtesy of Kelseyleigh Hepler
Kelseyleigh Hepler and her mom, Deanna Reber, on ane of the many trips the pair took together. (Courtesy of Kelseyleigh Hepler)Their terminal trip, to their dream destination of the Galapagos Islands, provided a rude introduction to the COVID pandemic.
They headed off for the South American islands on March 12, 2020, unaware of the world-changing events that were about to take place. By their second day in the Galapagos, news of restaurants and businesses and schools shutting the doors to protect from COVID was everywhere.
The pair concluded up stranded on the mainland in Ecuador as the U.S. instituted travel restrictions. It was a unsafe situation, as Deanna was running out of alive-preserving asthma and heart medications.
After several stops and starts, hurdles and pitfalls, Deanna and Kelseyleigh were finally able to render habitation on March 23.
'A fantastic nurse'
Deanna was an intensive care unit nurse for Kelseyleigh's entire life.
But it wasn't until she was by her mother'southward bedside during her struggle with COVID that she really understood what that meant.
"I saw the work her nurses did," she said. "Their selflessness is so admirable: what they do is really far more than than the medical side of things. It'south existence present, information technology's ensuring nobility to somebody in the most vulnerable state."
And watching those nurses care for her mother shed a whole new light on what her mother was all virtually.
Deanna loved being a nurse. And she was practiced at it.
"She was a fantastic nurse," John said. "She was very knowledgeable about everything."
Mary Agnew, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Belfry Health, said Deanna was someone special, a person who was well respected by her co-workers.
"Deanna was the true definition of a nurse. Dedicated to others, she provided comfort to patients and their families when they needed it most," she said. "She also served as a leader, advocate and key contributor to professional nursing practise at Reading Infirmary.
"Throughout her entire career, and up to her very last days, Deanna prioritized the health of her community past sharing her personal wellness journey while she bravely faced the furnishings of COVID-19," Agnew added. "Her compassion and dedication live on through those who loved her and those who worked aslope her."
At Deanna's memorial service at Reading Hospital, those that had worked side-past-side with her spoke of their admiration.
They called her irreplaceable, the kind of person who leaves their stamp on everyone they see. They chosen her a leader, the person anybody looked to when they didn't know what to practice.
She had a tough and fierce outside, they said, but i that covered a heart of golden. And that made her beloved past her hospital co-workers.
Kelseyleigh said that her mom was and then popular that when she was a patient at Reading Hospital a codename had to be used for her — Netherlands13 — and so that there wasn't "a line out the door" of people wanting to check on her.
A victim of COVID
John worried most his wife and daughter during their ordeal in the Galapagos, and didn't terminate worrying fifty-fifty afterward they made information technology safely home.
He said the pandemic made him terrified for Deanna. Her existing medical conditions made her a prime candidate to be striking hard by COVID, and each solar day she headed off to work in a place where it was prevalent.
That took a toll on Deanna, too.
"She could only share so much, but information technology was extremely sad," John said. "She would talk about the COVID cases and how unnecessary many of those deaths were, I recollect including hers.
"She would take tears in her eyes at habitation — never at the infirmary — because of how unnecessary it was and how traumatic it was for the families."
John and Deanna both took every precaution they could. Deanna seldom went anywhere other than the infirmary, and when she did she always wore a mask.
The couple got vaccinated as shortly as they were eligible, a movement that John said served to ease his fears for his married woman a bit.
Photo courtesy of Kelseyleigh Hepler
Reading Hospital ICU nurse Deanna Reber getting her COVID-19 vaccine shot. Deanna passed away on Sept. 4 after contracting COVID. (Courtesy of Kelseyleigh Hepler)But despite doing everything right, post-obit all of the rules, COVID plant its way to Deanna. She adult symptoms in Apr: heavy coughing, a fever and the loss of her senses of gustation and smell.
She was hospitalized briefly, but released to continue oxygen handling at dwelling. A 2nd stint in the infirmary came in May.
Deanna had ups and downs, John said. But somewhen the downs started outweighing the ups.
"She just got progressively worse," he said.
During ane of the ups, John took Deanna on ane concluding trip. The couple vacationed in Cape May in July, and John rolled his wife's wheelchair onto the beach so she could dip her feet in the sand ane concluding time.
With a weakened immune organization, Deanna's COVID led to pneumonia that attacked her lungs. She was put on a transplant list, and was set to head to Philadelphia to get a new pair on Aug. 8.
But the day before, John was forced to call an ambulance. Deanna's condition was worsening, and the oxygen supply they had at dwelling house could no longer sustain her.
Deanna was flown to Temple Hospital, but once there it was determined her immune organization was no longer operation. A transplant would not exist possible.
On Aug. xiii she was brought back past ambulance to Reading Hospital.
Brave to the end
When Deanna returned from Philadelphia, doctors told her family unit that the end was near.
"They basically told us they were putting her in comfort care to sustain her for a day or ii," Kelseyleigh said. "My mom being the fighter she is, she never quite fully gives up."
Deanna would keep on fighting for nearly some other month. And she used that fourth dimension, in her typical mode, to try to help others.
On the top of that list were the doctors and nurses who cared for her.
They had once been colleagues of hers, and she knew what they must be feeling. She had felt information technology many times earlier: the pain and frustration of trying everything to win an unwinnable boxing.
"Every doctor and nurse who came in about the end, she would tell them it wasn't their error," John said. "That's the kind of person she was. She told them she was happy with everything they tried."
On the concluding day that Deanna remained conscious, she chosen her entire team into her room.
"I think that actually speaks to her character," Kelseyleigh said. "her last day awake she had all of the doctors and nurses come in so she could basically encourage them to proceed doing what they were doing."
In her final days, Deanna's thoughts likewise turned to her swain COVID patients, and the vaccine hesitancy that led to so many of their illnesses. Most all of Reading Infirmary'due south current COVID patients have non been vaccinated, according to hospital officials.
Kelseyleigh said that her mother's case was "unbelievably rare," a breakthrough infection that led to hospitalization and death.
"But it's non rare for unvaccinated people to suffer the same matter," she said. "The goal here is to become people vaccinated so the disease wipes itself out."
Deanna's family unit said they will honor her dying wish by continuing to spread the word about the importance of vaccination. That means disarming people that it'due south not a political consequence, its a life-and-decease issue.
"It's something that never should take go a political issue," Kelseyleigh said. "I think the politics of it is costing people their lives and the lives of loved ones."
John said the choice to go vaccinated is about much more than than protecting yourself, pointing out that it's more likely that his wife contracted COVID from an unvaccinated patient.
"I empathize that people have the right to decide what to do with their bodies. Information technology'south a choice," he said. "Simply it's a choice I hope they brand, for themselves and for their loved ones."
Source: https://www.readingeagle.com/2021/09/24/covid-reading-hospital-nurse-vaccine
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