Desperate measures

have a decidedly love-hate relationship with antibiotics. On the one hand, I have to admit that I owe my life to them. In 1942, when my mother was 24, her dentist unwisely extracted a tooth while she had the flu. Within days, her neck ballooned with a streptococcus infection, and she was rushed to the hospital. My father, then her fiancé, wept helplessly at her bedside while priests filed past him after