Comedian Sarah Silverman Almost Died Last Week

Love her or hate her, Sarah Silverman is here to stay. The comedian just went through a serious health scare and was close to death in the ICU at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after having contracted epiglottitis last week.

Epiglottitis occurs when a piece of small cartilage that covers the windpipe swells and blocks air from getting into the lungs. According to the Mayo Clinic, it can cause respiratory failure.

Silverman took to Facebook on Wednesday and thanked all her loved ones for standing by her.

“I was in the ICU all of last week and I am insanely lucky to be alive,” she said. “Don’t even know why I went to the doctor, it was just a sore throat. But I had a freak case of epiglottitis.”

Silverman also thanked the medical team who worked to save her life as well as her loved ones.

“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?’”

When she finally came to, Silverman couldn’t remember a thing.

“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.”

The actress went on to give a special thank you to her “real-life hero,” and boyfriend, Michael Sheen.