I’m insanely lucky to be alive: Sarah Silverman tells of five days in intensive care

Comedian Sarah Silverman says she’s “insanely lucky to be alive” after having surgery and spending a week in an intensive care unit. The 45-year-old, best known for her controversial views on taboo topics such as religion and sex, was taken ill with what she called a “a freak case of epiglottitis”. Because she had low blood pressure she could not be put to sleep while being treated for the condition, a potentially fatal swelling of the cartilage lid that covers the windpipe that can block the flow of air into lungs. In a Facebook post, she said she had to have her hands restrained to keep her from pulling out her breathing tube.

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.

Sarah Silverman

She says she owes her life to the staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Writing on Facebook, she said: “I was drugged just enough to not feel the pain and have no idea what was happening or where I was. My friend Stephanie said I kept writing ‘was I in an accident?’ 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.”

I … 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.

Sarah Silverman

sarah silverman