She tends to the needs of medically fragile children during a coronavirus pandemic
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Healthcare Heroes
The News & Observer is telling the stories of “Healthcare Heroes,” those on the frontlines of treating coronavirus patients. Others are managing the equipment that allows those patients to be treated safely. These workers are putting their own health and the health of their families at risk every day so they can help others. Here are their stories.
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Many in the healthcare field are on the frontlines of treating coronavirus patients. Others are managing the equipment that allows those patients to be treated safely. These workers are putting their own health and the health of their families at risk every day so they can help others. The News & Observer is telling the stories of these “Healthcare Heroes.” If you’d like to nominate someone, you can do so here.
Lisa Ginger Vanderberry is like many heathcare professionals in the Triangle. Each day, even with all the unknowns of the coronavirus pandemic, she puts on her nursing scrubs and mask and cares for those with severe medical needs.
She’s often emotionally torn, knowing many are not allowed to see their families.
Vanderberry is director of nursing at Hilltop Home in Raleigh, a private, nonprofit intermediate care facility that provides support for 22 young children who are medically fragile or have significant developmental disabilities.
None have COVID-19, but congregate settings like long-term care facilities and nursing homes have been sources of outbreaks across the country.
“They live here with us, they get all of their therapies, they go to school here, get all of their medical needs addressed by our team of nurses and professionals,” Vanderberry said in an interview Wednesday. “We have such a fragile medical population that these children, if they get a cold, it could be devastating.”
Because of the threat of COVID-19, the children cannot receive visits or get hugs from their parents. Because of COVID-19, Vanderberry restricts her direct contact with anyone outside her family once she leaves her job.
Vanderberry, 52, is divorced and the mother of two teenagers. The youngest, Will, is autistic, with special needs. The oldest, Robb, has an apartment and is a student at Wake Tech. He also has a part-time job delivering pizzas, which creates other concerns for his mother during a pandemic.
“I just try to keep both kids grounded,” she said. “I’m trying to make them understand that this, too, shall pass. You have to show these kids that life isn’t always wonderful and sometimes you have bad stuff thrown at you and you have to find a way to find a silver lining and make it work and learn something from it.”
They’re lessons she learned from her own parents.
“Picking yourself up by your bootstraps is something I was fortunate that my parents taught me and I’m trying to teach my children as well,” she said. “I also bring that into the job. I’ve always loved nursing and have been in it for years. But you see a lot of really bad stuff and sad things and you have to believe that this (virus) was created by whatever power you believe in and you just have to deal with it and move on.”
Overcoming health challenges
Vanderberry is a Raleigh native, saying she was born in “old Rex” Hospital when it was at the corner of St. Mary’s Street and Wade Avenue. So, too, her mother and her brother, Chuck. She’s a graduate of Broughton High, attending the Watts School of Nursing in Durham with an eye on working with children.
She has had her own personal health challenges. In February, she had a mastectomy, her second. But it has not stopped her from attending to her job, her profession, to being with her Hilltop “kids.”
“It never crossed her mind to stop working there,” said Nancy Ginger, Lisa’s mother, Wednesday. “She’s a bundle of energy, almost like a force of nature. She charged right back into working full-time. Her boys always say, ‘Go save the babies’ when she walks out the door.
“The first thing she realized she needed to do was to close down the facility, basically. It’s just like a nursing home, except for little children. She held her ground. Her charge was to take care of those little children and she has.”
Like many other healthcare facilities, Hilltop has struggled in securing enough protective equipment, Vanderberry said. It’s not a hospital and doesn’t have COVID-19 patients. But the threat of coronavirus is ever-present.
“We’re trying to do everything we can from keep it from happening and to make sure the staff understands what they need to do once they leave the building to protect themselves,” she said. “We just try to provide a good education on how to be preventative.”
Vanderberry said Hilltop Home is “leaning on community support” and that donations are encouraged and can be made through the Hilltop Home website at hilltophome.org.
“Every day is different, and I’m very glad when I get to take my mask off at the end of the day,” she said.
She lives in the Brentwood section of Raleigh and said her neighbors have been supportive. She recently came home from work to find a sign in her yard: “You are Awesome!” Another neighbor left an N95 mask in her mail box, she said.
“You see all the commercials about ‘We’re all in this together’ and yeah, we are,” she said. “It’s everybody and not just your own little bubble.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
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