We certainly weren't happy about the infection in his brain. To get staph infection in the SAME location as prior surgery is a pretty good indication that it was caught or given during the prior surgery.
But I couldn't kick the overwhelming impression I kept getting that day. This is a blessing in disguise, this is the Lord's will, and it's something you need to be grateful for. For some reason I kept thinking of the book "The Hiding Place." I've actually never read the book, but I had heard about a part in the book where the flees were so thick in one of the concentration camps that it made the living conditions unbearable. One of the little girls in her prayers would thank God for the flees. When someone got mad at her for thanking God for the cursed flees, she said that she had been taught that she needed to be grateful for EVERYTHING, and that would include the flees. They found out later that the flees were so bad that they kept the officers from coming in and raping and beating them. So the flees, were in fact, a blessing! And that is the way I felt. I knew at that point that I might never understand the reason, but that I needed to be grateful for this blasted infection.
I started getting answers sooner than I had expected. About a week later, we had heard that a neurosurgeon (after hearing about Jared's infection), had said that infections can be beneficial for brain cancer, and that if they discovered an infection, they would actually let it sit for a couple days.
When I reflect on our situation, I think there's a reason why Jared didn't show any symptoms of infection. It was to let that infection sit and do it's "job" for as long as possible without killing him! He had certainly had it for more than a couple days! He had it long enough that his head was about to burst!
But I didn't really understand the benefit until a few months later, when I read this passage in a book... "Dr Jean Merrill, assoc. professor in residence in the Dept of Neurology at UCLA, found that Substance P, a neuropeptide secreted by the brain, can increase brain-cell production of tumor killers and immune cell activators. HOWEVER, THIS STIMULATION OCCURS ONLY IN CONJUNCTION WITH AN INFECTIOUS TRIGGERING AGENT."
So the infection was actually triggering tumor killers in his brain! The Lord works in mysterious ways...
