Sixty-two-year-old Larry Hall was worried.
In January, he started feeling sick. Having just gone through bypass surgery in 2018, he knew he was at high risk should he come down with COVID-19.
Hall, who lives in Dothan, Alabama, went to a neighboring town, Colquitt, Georgia, where his daughter lives, for treatment.
It was COVID-19. Doctors prescribed medication and sent him home.
But the next day, he got sick again and returned to the hospital in Colquitt.
"I don't remember nothing after that," he said.
Oxygen levels in Hall's blood had dropped dangerously low, his daughter, Corresica "Ressie" Ford, said.
"They called me at lunchtime and said they would have to put him on a ventilator," Ford said. "From there, he was out of it."
That was Jan. 21.
"When he went on the ventilator, they didn't have the equipment to treat him," she explained. "(So the hospital) called Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina. They had to go out a little farther to find ICU beds."
Hall's condition declined. He developed pneumonia in his right lung.
Doctors decided to intubate him - putting a tube down to his lung. It was bad news. Early data from the National Library of Medicine showed about 76 percent of COVID-19 patients who were intubated died.
The hospital called her again and said they had found a bed - in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Devin Kennedy, a St. Mary's Hospital pulmonologist and critical care specialist, said the hospital was on "the downswing" of intensive care COVID-19 patients.
Hall clearly needed ICU care, and St. Mary's Hospital had some space, so Kennedy told folks in Georgia that if they could get him to Jefferson City, the hospital would take care of him.
"It was such a strange circumstance. Why are we getting a patient from Georgia?" asked registered nurse Ashley Granich, who cared for Hall. "Then you think about all those patients who don't have access to beds."
Staff flew him to Jefferson City. Ford and her husband couldn't afford to fly out and made the 12-hour drive.
It was a long way from home, Ford said.
"Whoo, that's a hike. But it was just about his health at that point," she said.
Because they couldn't afford to stay, Ford and her husband returned home at the end of the weekend.
"It was scary. It was frightening," she said. "I didn't know which way it was going to go. One minute, you might be doing good. The next day, it was going bad."
Kennedy and staff cared for Hall and tried to make certain his family was aware of his condition.
Mortality rates for COVID-19 pneumonia patients remain high, Kennedy said.
"We don't have any specific treatments for (COVID-19)," he said. "And it's just a difficult disease to treat."
At one point, Hall's oxygen levels became so low, the hospital had to chemically paralyze him so physicians could control his breathing and how much oxygen he was using.
"He was nearing a point that I was pretty worried about if he was going to be able to progress and come out of it," Granich said. "I'd been speaking with the family about different things that could happen and what we're looking for."
The hospital has cared for so many COVID-19 patients, Granich said, that anything Hall went through wasn't new to staff.
One of the most difficult things doctors have to navigate with the disease is the restrictions on patients and visitors.
"We couldn't allow any visitors even in the room. Most of the time, when these patients are sick enough to require a ventilator, it's a prolonged course," Kennedy said. "At least a week, usually longer."
The patient can't communicate. And with Hall, the family was far away for most of his stay at the hospital anyway.
"Like most of the other patients, you have to spend time calling families on the phone, trying to explain things as best you can," Kennedy said.
To try to comfort Hall, St. Mary's Hospital would accept calls from his family and put a speakerphone in his room so he could hear their voices, even if he couldn't speak.
"We could do video chats, too, so they could at least see him," Kennedy said. "We try to do as many things as we can to make a difficult situation a little easier."
For Hall's mental health and for his family's, Granich tried as often as she could to get them together via phone, she said.
She would encourage him and joked that he had callouses on his hands, so she knew he was a hard worker.
Hall was on the ventilator for two weeks, Kennedy said.
He turned a corner and improved. Doctors took him off the ventilator Feb. 5.
And he had a new battle to overcome. First, he had to get well enough to begin physical therapy. The illness had sapped him of his strength. He couldn't walk. His arms weren't strong enough to lift food to his mouth. And he had to relearn how to eat.
Induced paralysis, combined with hydro-steroids, are among few things that can be used to treat COVID-19 pneumonia but can cause muscular weakness and temporary nerve damage.
"On top of all that, when someone's critically ill, they can also develop something called critical illness neuropathy. It takes a while to recover," Kennedy said.
Hall was strong enough to breathe on his own but had a lot of "profound weakness" that would take time and effort to recover from.
Physicians and therapists developed a plan to get Hall back on his feet.
"They were really good to me. I even cried sometimes because they were so good to me. I thank everybody," Hall said.
Soon after Hall overcame the illness, he transferred to a different Missouri hospital for therapy.
"It was a long struggle," he said. "By the help of God, we fought through everything. It's difficult when you don't have family around."
Ford returned to Missouri on Feb. 26 to bring her dad home.
She was thankful for the care Kennedy, Granich and others at St. Mary's Hospital provided her father and that they kept her informed.
Kennedy said he was grateful for an update on Hall.
"It's nice to hear success stories and to hear that he's still improving," Kennedy said.
And that he's with his family.
"He's doing great. His health is good," Ford said. "It makes you treasure your life more - your family more. If it wasn't for God, I don't know where my dad would be."