Journalist tells of life-changing illness

Andy Marso tells of his near-death experience and his arduous climb back to a much different life in his book “Worth the Pain: How Meningitis Nearly Killed Me — Then Changed My Life for the Better.”
Marso was about to graduate from the University of Kansas in 2004 when he contracted the deadly disease. Instead of leading his journalism school class down the hill, he would be fighting for his life.
The disease ravaged his body with deadly toxins. He was in the hospital for four months, much of it to undergo a painful procedure called debridement to remove dead tissue from his hands and feet. Today, Marso, a reporter, types with one thumb and a protruding nub of what is left on his other hand. He lost his fingers and the front half of both his feet.  
Marso will talk about his recovery and his decision to write about it at Saturday’s Iola Reading Festival on the campus of Allen Community College.
In a phone conversation Monday, Marso said writing of the ordeal “was draining at times, but also therapeutic. I would sit at the computer with tears streaming down my face.”
It wasn’t until Marso began writing about the painful debridement treatments that his recurring nightmares of going to “the tank” — the sterile room where Marso was lowered into a big metal tub for the procedures — began to stop.
“I had nightmares for months about that,” he said. “Once I put it on paper, they stopped.”
Marso explains the procedures in such detail it made this reader queasy.
Marso laughed.
“I had a lot more, but my editors had me cut it,” he said. 

THESE DAYS Marso works at the Kansas Health Institute as a reporter. Before that he worked at the Topeka Capital-Journal covering the state Legislature for several years.
“This gives me the opportunity to do more in-depth reporting and research,” he said of the post at KHI, which he assumed in August.
It also ties in with his efforts to promote awareness of bacterial meningitis and the importance of students, especially, getting the vaccine. He’s a frequent speaker at public health symposiums.

DOES HE still keep asking “why me?”
“Very seldom do I think how my life would have been different had this not happened to me. I’m pretty well ensconced that this is where I am supposed to be. In fact, I’ve pretty much embraced it.”
Marso will talk about his book at 1 p.m. Saturday and be able to sign copies of his book at 2.