We took Ty to the infectious disease doctor yesterday at Primary Children’s to see more about what’s causing her lymph nodes and saliva glands to become infected every 4-6 wks. After a couple hours of being there, we found out she has Recurrent Parotitis of Childhood. It’s rare syndrome that causes swelling, pain, and fever in the saliva glands. What’s happening is her parotid saliva gland doesn’t function properly which causes saliva to not move through it and it backs up and causes infection. Where this happens as frequently as it does, the infection is now going into her lymph nodes when she has a flare-up. She had her right parotid gland removed last year and since then has only had 1 flare-up on that side; however the left side has had about 5 infections since then. The Dr we saw is referring us back to the ENT to remove the left parotid gland, she feels that it will reduce or completely eliminate the problems.. I am pretty sure he will be on board b/c we had talked to him about this previously, if the left continued to be a problem he would remove it. He just wanted to make sure something else wasn’t causing the problems first. He is in India doing cleft palette reconstructions on little Indian kids for the next 3 wks, but I left a message to have him call me when he returns so we can set up a plan.
I can’t tell you the sense of relief I feel finally having a diagnosis. I look forward to speaking to our Dr when he returns and getting it all taken care of. Thank you God!
Thank you for all your love, support, and prayers as Ty goes through all this. It means so much to us!
