Sarah Silverman had a terrifying health scare recently.
The comedienne took to Facebook earlier today to reveal that she'd been in the ICU trying to recover from a very rare and life-threatening illness. "Hi. This is me telling everyone in my life at once why I haven't been around. This will not interest everyone so feel free to disregard.
I was in the ICU all of last week and I am insanely lucky to be alive. Don't even know why I went to the doctor, it was just a sore throat. But I had a freak case of epiglottitis," she began.
Epiglottitis occurs when the tissue protecting the windpipe becomes inflamed and is commonly caused by infection.
"I owe my life to Dr. Shawn Nasseri, Dr. Robert Naruse, Dr. Rob Huizenga, every nurse, and every technician & orderly at Cedars who's punch-the-clock jobs happen to save human lives on the regular," she continued. "There's something that happens when three people you're so close to die within a year and then YOU almost die but don't. (That was me. I'm the one that didn't die.) It's a strange dichotomy between, 'Why me?' and the other, 'Why me?'
"They couldn't put me fully to sleep for the recovery process because my blood pressure's too low. I was drugged just enough to not feel the pain and have no idea what was happening or where I was. They had to have my hands restrained to keep me from pulling out my breathing tube. My friend Stephanie said I kept writing 'was I in an accident?'"
Silverman added that the recovery process led to a personal revelation. "When I woke up 5 days later I didn't remember anything. I thanked everyone at the ICU for my life, went home, and then slowly as the opiates faded away, remembered the trauma of the surgery & spent the first two days home kind of free-falling from the meds / lack of meds and the paralyzing realization that nothing matters. Luckily that was followed by the motivating revelation that nothing matters.
"I'm so moved by my real-life hero, Michael [Sheen], and amazing Sissies (blood & otherwise) & friendos, who all coordinated so that there wasn't a moment I was alone. It makes me cry. Which hurts my throat. So stop."
And while the entire experience is frightening, it wouldn't be a true Sarah Silverman story without a few laughs. "Anyway there are some funny stories too," she added.
"I couldn't speak for a while and I don't remember a lot of my 'lucid' time, but Amy (the Zvi) told me I stopped a nurse - like it was an emergency - furiously wrote down a note and gave it to her. When she looked at it, it just said, 'Do you live with your mother?' next to a drawing of a penis.
"Also, when I first woke up and the breathing tube came out, I still couldn't talk and they gave me a board of letters to communicate. My loved ones stood there, so curious what was going to be the first thing I had to say. They followed my finger, rapt, as I pointed from letter to letter until I finally spelled out, "Did you see 'Hello My Name is Doris.'"
Oh, Sarah, we are so, incredibly happy you're OK.