Sarah Silverman on her near-death experience: 'I am insanely lucky to be alive'

Stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman has shared her terrifying experience with a disease that nearly killed her. She was admitted in the ICU at a Los Angeles hospital after complaining of a throat infection and was subsequently diagnosed with a life-threatening bacterial infection.

After spending five days battling the inflammation of the epiglottitis, Silverman informed fans about how "lucky" she is "to be alive" and recounted her near death experience on her Facebook page. She also used the post to praise the hospital staff and thanked them for saving her life.

"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," the Wreck It Ralph voice-actress wrote in her post.

According to Healthline, epiglottitis is characterised by inflamed tissue in the epiglottis. "It is a potentially life-threatening illness where the tissue that makes up the epiglottis swells and blocks the airway to the lungs."

The 45-year-old further mentioned that the personal losses she suffered last year along with her own near-death experience made her worry about life. She wrote: "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'?"

She claimed that the bacterial infection, which she mistook as a mere sore throat, was so severe that she could not recall the five days she spent in ICU.

"They couldn't put me fully to sleep for the recovery process because my blood pressure was 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 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 paralysing realisation that nothing matters. Luckily that was followed by the motivating revelation that nothing matters," she explained.

The comedian – who is popular for her offbeat and controversial style, which most of the time invites ire from fans – is currently recuperating from her illness.