I woke up one morning with the side of my face purple and my ear swollen to more than twice its normal size. I’ll never forget the look on the face of the attending infectious disease physician when he told me I needed immediate emergency surgery to evacuate the site. That surgery consisted of cutting out and cauterizing the infected tissue behind my ear and a sizable portion of my earlobe and scalp, along with 50 stitches across four layers to piece the remains back together.

When the culture came back days later, it confirmed I was suffering from a bacterial “superbug,” a pathogen that evolved to resist traditional antibiotics due to a phenomenon called antimicrobial resistance, or AMR. The infection was relentless. That first day was just the beginning of the nightmarish process of being an AMR patient. The infection continually returned. I needed more than a dozen additional surgeries with long courses of antibiotics that eradicated my gut flora – all with no resolution in sight…

Read the article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.