Andy Marso
ASMP Advocate

In 2004, I was getting ready to graduate from college and looking forward to moving to the next phase of my life. Then everything changed overnight. I contracted bacterial meningitis and was hospitalized in critical condition. I spent a month in the intensive care unit, then another three months in a wound care unit, undergoing treatments to remove tissue that had been killed by the initial infection. Parts of all four of my limbs were amputated and it took a year of rehabilitation to learn to walk and live independently again.

I have since attained a Master’s degree in journalism, worked as a government and health reporter for several news outlets, and now edit a medical journal focused on family practice management. I also published a memoir titled “Worth the Pain: How Meningitis Nearly Killed Me — Then Changed My Life for the Better” and have advocated for meningitis vaccination at the Centers for Disease Control and several state legislatures.