"I went in for minor surgery and came out with a vicious infection"

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A harrowing story about the superbugs killing 8,000 Canadians a year

UNFORGETTABLE SAGAS, SCOOPS AND SCANDALS
from Toronto Life’slong-form archives

MARCH 22, 2025

Dear reader,

In 2008, after a minor surgical procedure, I contracted a vicious case of MRSA—a contagious, multi-drug-resistant staph infection. Over the next year, I consulted with teams of doctors and nurses, had multiple procedures and took medication by the handful in an attempt to kill the pernicious bacteria that had taken over my body. When Covid hit in 2020, a lot of what I had gone through more than a decade earlier came rushing back: the masks, gloves and gowns, the isolation, the endless debate over something as seemingly simple as hand-washing.

This month marked the fifth anniversary of Covid being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. While many people have moved on, the professionals who focus on health emergencies and preparedness have not. They’re busy trying to predict the next big, bad bug headed our way and working to make sure we’re ready when it lands. Many experts believe it’s already here, in the form of Antimicrobial Resistance. Associated with five million deaths each year, AMR is the third leading cause of mortality in the world—a body count that has earned it the chilling nickname “the silent pandemic.” My infection, which I wrote about in this 2009 story featured below, took nearly a year to resolve—and I was lucky.

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—Stéphanie Verge, features editor

Superbugged

I went in for minor surgery and came out with a vicious infection. A story about contaminated hospitals, dirty doctors and the bacteria that are killing 8,000 Canadians a year

BY STÉPHANIE VERGE | MARCH 1, 2009

Waiting for my appointment with the infectious disease specialist, I looked around the room. I wondered what kinds of pathogens the other patients were harbouring and how easy it would be to contract them. My eyes fell to my lap, onto the thick brown folder filled with photocopies of every piece of medical information I’d compiled over the past 10 months. I was determined to win this round. After listening to my recap, the doctor prescribed a decolonization process that involved more antibiotics, a super-strength version of Polysporin and a hefty antibacterial wash that, although used sparingly, left a web of tiny cuts across my body. I’d eye these minuscule slashes in the shower suspiciously, tiny portals for more infection. When I returned to the hospital a few weeks later, the specialist swabbed the four key areas—nostrils, perineum, armpits and groin—then pre-emptively comforted me. “If it comes back, don’t consider it a failure. Sometimes we have to do it again.” I asked her if there was anything I could do to keep the MRSA from resurfacing. “My husband jokes that people should stay out of hospitals,” she said. “They are dangerous places.”

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