Martin and Kevin Jones, 60 and 59, Oakland

Kevin Jones had many strange and horrible dreams during his harrowing battle with coronavirus: Delusions of limbs being cut off. A blue robot in the room filled with crystals. An upsidedown chicken doing the chicken dance.

When he did have a lucid thought, it was of his husband and partner of 34 years, Martin Jones.

“All I wanted to do was get back to Martin,” he says. “I remember that was the prevailing thought in my mind. Get back to Martin.”

The 59yearold Oakland man, who was intubated for three weeks and given a slim chance to live, contracted the virus after returning from Europe on Tuesday, March 17, the day after the Bay Area shelter in place was announced. Kevin checked into Kaiser Oakland with a high fever on Friday, March 20, for what would become a monthlong stay.

By the following Monday, he was intubated and sedated, with oxygen dropping to perilous levels every time he was moved or bathed.

Martin, who had a milder coronavirus case, began to receive grim news from doctors. When told his husband had a slim chance of survival, he lobbied for a visit — with the Kaiser staff, a nurse manager, infectious disease doctors and others working to get approval on the basis that both men were COVID19 positive.

It was a dramatic scene. Martin drove into a secured loading dock, with a team of PPEcovered security and his own elevator. He spent four hours, holding Kevin’s hand, talking about the time they first met at the old Stud bar in San Francisco, their dogs and playing Kevin’s favorite music.

“I didn’t actually say goodbye, because if in any way he was hearing me, that’s not what I wanted him to hear,” Martin says. “But that’s effectively what it was.”

Goodbye wasn’t necessary. On Easter Sunday, April 12, after 21 days on a ventilator, Kevin’s fun energy poured into the world again.

“I woke up and said, ‘What’s up bitches, I’m back,’ ” Kevin Jones says. “I came back the same day Jesus did.”

He returned home April 20, and as of early June was still receiving oxygen from a mobile tank to help with his breathing. But his energy is returning and spirits are high. He cooks meals and catches up with friends, even though conversations still leave him short of breath.

“We joke that I’ve gone from being his caregiver to being his warden,” Martin says.

Appreciate the love you have, they say, and treat every day as a gift.

“I reach out and touch him at night,” Martin says. “Just to make sure he’s there.”