Tattered Flesh, Resilient Spirit

Forget those anonymous newspaper headlines about medical miracles and accompany Dr. Craig Collison, his family, colleagues, and friends, on an incredible journey through his death-defying ordeal with flesh-eating bacteria. When a medical disaster ripped this young doctor’s body and world to shreds, the steadfast faith of his family circle made it whole again.

Collison was completing his residency and awaiting the birth of his third child, when a routine surgery turned into the kind of unique catastrophe that makes medical headlines. The flesh-eating bacteria that was consuming his healthy body could not obliterate Craig’s belief in God, nor shake the faith of his family. Collison’s wife Michelle put a journal at his bedside for well-wishers, and herself, to write their thoughts in. Entries from that journal punctuate the gripping and dramatic account of how a fluke bacteria transformed Craig from healthy young doctor to critically-ill patient and how his friends and family kept the faith.

Tattered Flesh, Resilient Spirit is the incredible story of the Collison family’s struggle with "flesh-eating" bacteria, a spontaneous and horrible illness that caused massive tissue destruction with deadly and never-ending complications. Raw emotion, both incredible joy and overwhelming sadness, as Michelle’s journal entries take you to the heat of the moment, inject you right into this real-life drama. Their astounding faith in the verses used to try to understand why this happened gives witness to the Spirit at work in our lives, allowing Craig to persevere where so few survive.

Craig H. Collison, MD grew up in central Pennsylvania, graduating from State College High School. He earned an engineering degree from Penn State University and went on to medical school at Wake Forest University. He then did his Pediatrics training at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, part of Case Western Reserve University. He and his family then returned home to central Pennsylvania to work as a general Pediatrician with Centre Medical and Surgical Associates and Mount Nittany Medical Center. He lives with his wife, Michelle, his children, Taylor, Chase, Caroline and Lydia, and their golden retriever Maddy in "The Simon Pickel House." This 1833 stone house resides in the small village of Madisonburg, part of the Penns Valley area. His interests include football, golf, playing guitar and most importantly being an involved husband and dad.