Chloe Barr, 51, San Francisco

On March 14, Chloe Barr and her husband were halfway to Salinas to meet a friend when she started coughing at a rest stop, uncontrollably. “I looked at my husband and I was like, ‘I think I have the coronavirus,’ ” Barr, 51, said. So they turned back to San Francisco.

It had been three days since she’d flown to Denver for a job interview. Over the next week, her lungs started to make crackling and bubbling sounds. With an oxygen pulse oximeter left over from her late mother, she measured hers at 88 — normal was usually between 95 and 100. Soon, she went to the ER, where they took a nasal swab and sent her home. A couple of days later, she went again, and despite her negative swab, they found signs of COVID19 in her lungs.

After three separate visits to the hospital, she finally checked into the ER and stayed there for five days. She was put on nasal oxygen, a cocktail of medications including the infamous hydroxychloroquine drug, antibiotics, vitamins and opioids. She lost her senses of taste and smell, battled thrush and sweated to the point she’d soak through multiple towels. Her blood work showed damage to her organs and inflammation in her body. On the last day in the hospital, the mental pain finally caught up to the physical and she broke down. One of the nurses tried to comfort her, but Barr could tell she was scared, too.

“I think a lot of them were so scared of being in a room with me,” she said.

All the while, her husband had fallen sick, but didn’t tell her. When she finally got home, the couple had to maneuver separate isolations in a tiny onebedroom apartment; they kissed for the first time after 14 days. But then the horror continued, after Barr learned that her father, who was living at Atria senior living in Daly City, had tested positive for the virus — and had been sent to the ER. In his few conversations with Barr, he consistently complained of not having enough water to drink.

Her father ended up choking on a piece of chicken during lunch. He was resuscitated, but never regained consciousness again. It was a fugue of indescribable pain for Barr who was still so sick, but had to make an impossible decision about her father’s life. And though she was still dealing with the virus, the hospital let her be with him when he was disconnected from life support March 30. She stood over him for an hour and a half, holding his hand until he died.

Recovery has not come as a beacon for Barr, who ended up getting the job she applied for and is working remotely. She still occasionally endures pain — in her back, in her lungs, the smell of smoke around her, a symptom that’s followed her throughout her sickness, and the fear that the virus could strike again.