An infection which only surfaced after her spinal surgery, and which so strained her diminished resistance that she fell into a coma, had to be put on a ventilator through a tracheotomy, and thus lay vegetating for months in the ICU of the private clinic near Zurich, connected to various tubes, surrounded by pumping machines and grotesquely wheezing devices, by more or less well-meaning nurses and attending physicians who did their best not to let her die. This was in fact unusual in Switzerland, which has always had a special relationship with death.
