My husband had cold and then pneumonia. He was admitted to the hospital and within 24 hours we were told he needed to be intubated and put on a respirator. He was then transferred to an ICU and was in an induced coma for 39 days. He has spent 5 months in a hospital and is now being transferred to a rehab facility for another 4 - 6 weeks. He was diagnosed with ARDS. He is still on oxygen as the lungs heal and trying to regain his strength. It will be a long road to a full recovery. We are thinking about a year. We had never heard of ARDS before.

About 2 weeks ago my friend was not feeling well with cough and fever. We went to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with pneumonia. The doctor told her it was a little unusual that the pneumonia was in her upper lobes. She was admitted and by the third day, she was on nebulizers. By day 6 they decided to intubate and put her on the ventilator, transferred to ICU. Over the next few days her kidneys failed, she is now on dialysis. She is now "critically stable," she is still on the ventilator and dialysis, with drug induced sedation and paralysis. The ICU staff feels she should have made progress by now, but they are also surprised she is still alive. This is someone who didn't smoke, has high blood pressure but no other health problems.

My cousin had a routine surgery. She had a reaction to morphine which caused her to aspirate. She suffered 2 cardiac arrests. She developed a severe pneumonia and then ARDS. She was placed on ECMO for about 10 days. She had a tracheotomy after she was removed from ECMO. She suffered from severe anxiety, agitation and ran a fever. In a span of 31 days, my once healthy cousin was dead. Her family is still trying to understand why.