This sentence, from Mary John, a no by Ana Pessoa, is one of those idiomatic ways of saying something that doesn’t make sense unless you know. The “que nem” is just doing the same job as the word “como”. It’s used in compairons of the kind that in English would be rendered as “As strong as an ox” or “as fit as a fiddle”
“Eu estava fresca que nem uma alface”. They think she’s dead but she’s “as fresh as a lettuce.
Luso 
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