CLICK HERE if you’re having trouble viewing media on a mobile device.
OAKLAND — When doctors summoned Martin Jones to the hospital, they told him he could finally see his beloved husband, Kevin, but it was time to say goodbye.
Loved ones usually don’t get to visit COVID-19 patients in isolation rooms. But since Martin was already suffering from his own bout with the highly infectious virus, he was allowed the rare privilege last month of sitting for four hours at Kevin’s bedside at Kaiser Oakland, holding his hand as the “Chaplet of Divine Mercy” played in the background and a ventilator pumped what doctors feared would be his final breaths.
“This is not the way it was supposed to go,” Martin told his love of 34 years, before removing Kevin’s wedding ring and pulling himself away to begin an uncertain future like so many family members crushed by the loss of this global pandemic.
The ending of this story is different, though. Coronavirus patients on the brink of death usually don’t survive and go home.
But there they were last week, together again, sitting in the garden overflowing with lavender and lush greenery outside their Oakland Hills home, sharing their story of recovery.
“I had no idea I had almost died,” Kevin whispered, with a notepad on his lap to help preserve his vocal cords after weeks with a breathing tube.
In early March, Kevin, 59, had jumped at the opportunity to visit Paris with a neighbor during a trip to see her daughter studying abroad in nearby London. At the time, the virus seemed real — but remote. Still, the traveling partners held each other accountable, slathering their hands in soap and hand sanitizer at every turn.
When he returned on March 17, the day the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place order began, Kevin felt fine. But the next day, he was shaking with fever and chills. He knew he had a kidney stone and assumed the symptoms were related.
“Turns out, that was not the case,” 60-year-old Martin said wryly.
Martin dropped Kevin at Kaiser’s emergency room and parked the car, but like all visitors, he was turned away at the door.
The first days brought texts and calls and the occasional FaceTime. But Kevin’s condition worsened quickly and within days he was unconscious on a ventilator.
Busy doctors and nurses kept Martin looped in. But the not being there, he said, “was the hard part.”
“This is the most difficult thing I have witnessed in medicine,” said Dr. John Taylor, chief of critical care for Kaiser’s East Bay service area. “Seeing patients be so incredibly ill and some who have passed away, not having their families there is heartbreaking. I can only imagine what Martin went through.”
Days after Kevin was admitted to the intensive care unit, Martin also tested positive for the virus.
Even as he suffered through shortness of breath and exhaustion at home, he tried to get the couple’s affairs in order. A will. Power of attorney. A plan for the couple’s beloved rescue poodle, Blanche DuBois.
At first, Kevin had wanted to keep the diagnosis private. Nothing on Facebook, please. But as his condition worsened, Martin decided people deserved to know.
The house was flooded with casseroles. Neighbors texted well wishes and prayers. Kevin is religious, Martin not so much.
Still, he said, “There are no atheists in a foxhole. We’ll take whatever you’ve got.”
On March 26, while Kevin battled for his life, more than 100 people gathered on Zoom for a birthday toast in Kevin’s honor.
Earlier, before it had seemed like a real possibility, the two had joked about what they wanted their epitaph to say, settling on, “We were nothing if not good hosts.”
But things weren’t looking good.
“I don’t care if he’s blind or can’t walk, just bring him home,” Martin pleaded.
Eventually, though, he received the call: It was time to say goodbye to his husband — the cook, the entertainer, the cocktail maker — and since Martin had already been infected, he could do it in person.
The buildup, Martin said, was excruciating, “a huge rollercoaster.” Inside the hospital room, Martin removed his gloves and held Kevin’s hand, skin to skin.
For four hours, Martin talked to his sedated husband, playing music and reminiscing about their love story: Meeting at The Stud in San Francisco — the old location — that July night in 1986. The looks, the dancing, the immediate chemistry.
Martin thought Kevin was “incredibly charming and engaging, not to mention quite handsome.”
Kevin told friends, “That’s the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.” Full stop.
And they have. From fabulous meals to happy hours with neighbors who started out as good friends and turned into family. From Martin’s job with Alameda County social services to Kevin’s work in the restaurant industry and beyond. From Puerto Vallarta to Barcelona, where they sometimes dream about retiring.
When he returned home that night, and a friend asked what she could do, Martin said simply, “Magic.”
So she removed the “magic shoestring” she’d been wearing since her necklace chain broke and Martin placed Kevin’s ring on it and wore it around his neck.
Whether it was magic, physical touch, the doctors and nurses trying a technique called proning — essentially turning Kevin on his stomach to try to relieve pressure on the lungs — or something else, he slowly started to improve.
By mid-April, doctors took him off the ventilator for good. They took care of the lingering kidney stone issue. He moved out of the ICU. Took a few steps. And finally, a month after he arrived, he came home.
Kaiser’s doctors and nurses lined the hallway to applaud as Kevin went home.
“He couldn’t possibly remember me,” Taylor said, “but it was such an honor to see him leave and say thank you.”
“I just wanted to see Martin,” Kevin whispered, sitting next to his husband on their terrace.
“I can’t stop touching him,” Martin said.
Kevin, who attributes his survival in part to the fact that, “I come from good country stock,” is thankful — for the doctors, the nurses, his neighbors and Martin.
He wants to help poor children, go to church, enjoy a Negroni, throw a massive party for the team that saved him.
If anything, Kevin hopes his experience shows just how serious the coronavirus can be.“I don’t wish it on anyone,” he said, even those falsely labeling it a hoax or calling shelter orders overblown.
A kidney stone on the other hand? Maybe.
“It hurts like hell,” he said, “but you live.”
Video: Kevin Jones thanks healthcare workers. Courtesy: Kaiser Permanente.
Click here if you’re having trouble viewing this video.
