Rubin, a lawyer who founded and is now president of the ARDS Foundation, said ARDS can start in many ways: with a virus such as the flu or coronavirus, vaping, smoke inhalation, a gunshot wound to the lungs, pancreatitis. She first became sick in 1995 with pain in her lower back that spread to her chest. Soon she was in the emergency room with kidney failure. She was on a ventilator for eight weeks, the first four in an induced coma. Her spleen was damaged. Her lungs collapsed. She had delirium.