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This Woman Explains What It’s Like to Be in a Medically Induced Coma

Writer Emily Gordon was a carefree, tattooed 27-year-old living in Chicago in 2007 when she came down with what she thought was a garden-variety cold.

“I reacted how I always did when my body behaved in a way I found unpalatable: I ignored it,” the Carmichael Show writer and Comedy Central producer writes in an essay for Lena Dunham’s new email newsletter, Lenny.

But the “cold” wasn’t having it. Although she soldiered through work, dance classes, and dates, it did not clear up, prompting her to visit a local clinic. From there, Gordon was rushed immediately to the hospital for life-threatening respiratory distress and placed in a medically induced coma.

“My vitals were…

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