Heavens To Betsy!: Chronic Sclerosing Sialadenitis

As we all know, Stephen stepped into middle age this year. We did it style and made a huge fan fare with his 40th birthday party. I guess that wasn't enough to celebrate, and so Stephen's body decided to grow some super saliva glands that we affectionately refer to as Neck Balls (yes we've heard all the jokes).

Due to previous neck issues that we've experienced I made Stephen go to the doctor's to ease my mind that all he had was swollen glands. At first the doc didn't ease my mind. He made us go get CT contrast scans and X-rays of my husband's lovely neck, then told us he would stay late at the office just to see us when the results were in. It's been my experience that when doctors hurry to get something done, and then offer to stay late at the office, as nice an offer as it seems, that's not a good thing. Doctors are not in the business of quickness. So 3 days later we were back to get results of all the test. Luckily he had good news. Swollen saliva glands, no signs of malignant cells!
Except wait, they were swollen equally on both sides (that's not normal), and hold on a sec they feel like rocks (again not really supposed to be like that). So he suggested we go see a specialist just to make sure everything was copacetic.

Off to the specialist.

When we went to the specialist, Dr. Hunter, and when he came into the room to talk about the scans and X-rays and he said, that everything looked good, but we wanted to examine Stephen's neck (just to be on the safe side). Well, let me tell you, a surprised look on your ENT doctor's face is not look you're going for, but that's what we got. Dr. Hunter had never felt anything like that before, he didn't know why those stupid neck balls were so hard, why they on both side of his neck, and so he decided that a biopsy was in order. A small needle poke, quick, not painful, just a little sting.

Dr. Hunter underestimated the denseness of those neck balls and ended up having to shove that stupid needle into Stephen's neck to get that biopsy. It wasn't all that quick and certainly hurt, but Stephen is Awesome Man, and he made it through.

The only results that were conclusive from the biopsy were that no malignant cells were found. That was the really important news - and really all we cared about - but Dr. Hunter wanted more answers than that and wanted to remove just one, so the pathologist "could have fun with it". And that's just she did. Here is her report.

This histologic appearance is consistent with chronic sclerosing sialadenitis (Kuttner Tumor).
The submandibular gland architecture is mostly maintained though sclerotic. There is prominent lyphoplasmacytic inflammation of the lobules, lobular atrophy, occasional noncaseating granulomatous reaction, and occasional hyperplastic lyphoid follicles--the last in less sclerotic areas of the gland. The lobules are sparated by fibrous bands with vaiable fibroproliferative activity and lyphoplasmacytic inflammation. No sialolithiasis is appreciated. The is no morphologic evidence for lymphoma or other malignancy.

For those who don't have a background in "doctor", this means he had non-cancerous, petrified neck balls.

Isaac thought it would be fun to support is dad!