A Reading Hospital nurse died from COVID. Her dying wish? Get the vaccine

Deanna Reber could have moved up. She could have gotten out of the intensive care unit.

A Reading Hospital nurse for 29 years, a career with a list of accolades her husband said would likely stretch on for miles, Deanna had endless possibilities for advancement at her fingertips. But she was happy right where she was.

“One thing 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 be right at the bedside. She had a passion for her patients and a passion for her fellow nurses.”

Not even a global pandemic, one that posed a dire risk to a woman who had survived cancer a decade ago and was taking a variety of medications for other conditions 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, continuing her work in the intensive care unit where she had toiled for more than 25 years. She knew the risk, Kelseyleigh said, but was unflinching in her dedication.

“She definitely went into work every day knowing the reality of the situation,” Kelseyleigh said. “At any point she probably could have gone to a supervisor and said she didn’t feel comfortable. But that’s not something she would do.”

In April, Deanna was diagnosed with COVID-19, even after being vaccinated. After months of ups and down, of alternating moments of hope and despair, she lost her battle with the deadly disease on Sept. 4.

Deanna was 15 days short of her 51st birthday. Her dying wish was that everyone get the COVID vaccine.

“Deanna’s dying wish was that everyone get vaccinated so we can protect our loved ones from COVID-19.”

— from the obituary

Loving and giving

John Reber couldn’t help but smile.

As he stood on a stage inside the Thun/Janssen Auditorium at Reading Hospital on Wednesday evening, looking out at the crowd that had gathered for his wife’s memorial service, his grin was sly yet heartfelt.

He told the story about how he and Deanna first started dating, when he worked for a local playground system and Deanna worked as a summer playground leader.

There were lots of parties that summer, John said, and at one he sat down at a table beside Deanna. He looked into her gray-green eyes and made his move, reaching beneath the table to grab her hand.

John looked down, only to realize Deanna’s other hand was being held by another guy.

“I thought, ‘She’s not going home with that loser. She’s going home with this loser,’ ” he said as those gathered for the ceremony laughed.

He was right.

Within six months the pair were engaged. John said there was no need to wait any longer, he realized what he had found.

“I knew what a treasure I had,” he said.

The couple would end up setting up shop in Wyomissing, where they raised three children: Kelseyleigh and her two brothers, Ryan and Kyle.

John speaks about his wife with reverence. He speaks with the voice of someone who knows the joy of falling in love with a truly special person, and having that love returned.

And Deanna was clearly someone capable of expressing love. In fact, John said, it was all she ever did.

“She was very giving. It was never about her,” he said. “It was always about someone else who needed to be taken care of. She was a giver.”

Her caring nature didn’t make her a pushover, however. Deanna could be fierce when she needed to be, especially when it came to her three children.

“She was a momma bear, very protective,” Kelseyleigh said.

Kelseyleigh said her mom was bold and straightforward, the kind of person you knew would always give you an honest answer when you asked her a question. She was a woman of focus and dedication.

“Whatever she was doing, she was all in,” Kelseyleigh said. “She never did anything half heartedly.”

That was true for how she handled motherhood, nursing and even her hobbies. An avid scrap-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 house,” her daughter said with a laugh.

Deanna also didn’t hold back when it came to another of her passions: travel.

“She was a big traveler. She liked to travel outside of the country,” 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 made a point to take a mother-daughter trip at least once a year.

Their last 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 ended up stranded on the mainland in Ecuador as the U.S. instituted travel restrictions. It was a dangerous situation, as Deanna was running out of live-preserving asthma and heart medications.

After several stops and starts, hurdles and pitfalls, Deanna and Kelseyleigh were finally able to return home 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’s 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 the medical side of things. It’s being present, it’s ensuring dignity 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 about.

Deanna loved being a nurse. And she was good 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 Tower 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 practice at Reading Hospital.

“Throughout her entire career, and up to her very last days, Deanna prioritized the health of her community by sharing her personal health journey while she bravely faced the effects of COVID-19,” Agnew added. “Her compassion and dedication live on through those who loved her and those who worked alongside her.”

At Deanna’s memorial service at Reading Hospital, those that had worked side-by-side with her spoke of their admiration.

They called her irreplaceable, the kind of person who leaves their stamp on everyone they meet. They called her a leader, the person everyone looked to when they didn’t know what to do.

She had a tough and fierce exterior, they said, but one that covered a heart of gold. And that made her beloved by her hospital co-workers.

Kelseyleigh said that her mom was so popular that when she was a patient at Reading Hospital a codename had to be used for her — Netherlands13 — so that there wasn’t “a line out the door” of people wanting to check on her.

A victim of COVID

John worried about his wife and daughter during their ordeal in the Galapagos, and didn’t stop worrying even after they made it safely home.

He said the pandemic made him terrified for Deanna. Her existing medical conditions made her a prime candidate to be hit hard by COVID, and each 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 it was extremely sad,” John said. “She would talk about the COVID cases and how unnecessary many of those deaths were, I think including hers.

“She would have tears in her eyes at home — never at the hospital — 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 hospital, and when she did she always wore a mask.

The couple got vaccinated as soon as they were eligible, a move that John said served to ease his fears for his wife a bit.

But despite doing everything right, following all of the rules, COVID found its way to Deanna. She developed symptoms in April: heavy coughing, a fever and the loss of her senses of taste and smell.

She was hospitalized briefly, but released to continue oxygen treatment at home. A second stint in the hospital came in May.

Deanna had ups and downs, John said. But eventually the downs started outweighing the ups.

“She just got progressively worse,” he said.

During one of the ups, John took Deanna on one final 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 one last time.

With a weakened immune system, 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 home could no longer sustain her.

Deanna was flown to Temple Hospital, but once there it was determined her immune system was no longer functioning. A transplant would not be possible.

On Aug. 13 she was brought back by ambulance to Reading Hospital.

Brave to the end

When Deanna returned from Philadelphia, doctors told her family that the end was near.

“They basically told us they were putting her in comfort care to sustain her for a day or two,” Kelseyleigh said. “My mom being the fighter she is, she never quite fully gives up.”

Deanna would keep on fighting for nearly another month. And she used that time, in her typical fashion, 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 it many times before: the pain and frustration of trying everything to win an unwinnable battle.

“Every doctor and nurse who came in near the end, she would tell them it wasn’t their fault,” John said. “That’s the kind of person she was. She told them she was happy with everything they tried.”

On the last day that Deanna remained conscious, she called her entire team into her room.

“I think that really 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 keep doing what they were doing.”

In her final days, Deanna’s thoughts also turned to her fellow COVID patients, and the vaccine hesitancy that led to so many of their illnesses. Nearly all of Reading Hospital’s current COVID patients have not 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 not rare for unvaccinated people to suffer the same thing,” she said. “The goal here is to get people vaccinated so the disease wipes itself out.”

Deanna’s family said they will honor her dying wish by continuing to spread the word about the importance of vaccination. That means convincing people that it’s not a political issue, its a life-and-death issue.

“It’s something that never should have become 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 get vaccinated is about much more than protecting yourself, pointing out that it’s more than likely that his wife contracted COVID from an unvaccinated patient.

“I understand that people have the right to decide what to do with their bodies. It’s a choice,” he said. “But it’s a choice I hope they make, for themselves and for their loved ones.”

Source: Berkshire mont