The darkness. Still. Quiet. Thoughts abound, my heart is racing, and sleep seems impossible at this point. My less than perfect hearing focuses on the labored breathing of not one, but both boys. Two completely different reasons but both equally painful for me to listen to, having been an asthma sufferer many years ago. One wheezing from congestion, the other struggling to inhale from anxiety.
I remember all too well the helpless feeling of being on the verge of drowning: swimming against hope in the very air that others effortlessly take in (and take for granite), yet against all desperation, there is nothing more than just enough breath in every swallow to keep you conscious. Akin to waterboarding I suppose, yet your own body is the enemy in this scenario. I would suffer 10,000 deaths of this nature so that my boys would never have to suffer one moment of feeling breathless.
Orion's battle comes every winter. Every cold, flu, or other virus that is going around, this kid will catch and it always makes its way to his lungs. I am thankful for the medicine that gives him relief. I shutter to think of how bad he would suffer without them or how long his little body could hold out. It's the steroidal inhalers that really make the difference long term, yet it is the same culprit that turns him into "Animal Orion" as Apollo lovingly calls him. Animal is a fitting title. He becomes wilder. More aggressive, more emotional, just more of all the things he already is. Orion never complains that he cant breath well. Even when his sentences are cut short in order to catch his breath, just to finish what he is saying. He doesn't know any better. It never slows him down either. He just keeps on doing what he is doing until we give him his meds and then at the end of the day, force him to stay still long enough that he falls asleep, exhausted and weary.
Apollo, is an otherwise very healthy kid. He seldom gets a cold or flu and when he does it is usually very mild. In mid-January, it would seem that a switch, of sorts, was flipped. Apollo may have caught a slight cough or cold, but in the space of 24 hours, he became acutely aware of his mortality. It is hard to say what the actual trigger was; the death a month earlier of our neighbor Johnny and his memorial in January (just a week before his anxiety started), my change in schedule and nights spent away from home with my new job, months of watching Orion struggle to breath, or just the long gloomy, rainy winter. Maybe it was a combination of all of these or possibly it had nothing to do with any of them. It really doesn't matter at this point. What does matter is that a part of his brain went into overdrive. He was diagnosed with anxiety.
"Cut down on his screen time and he will be back to normal pretty quickly," said his well meaning pediatrician. Obviously he didn't know that we do not have cable. Nor did he know that during the week, the boys aren't allowed screen time. I understand that many kids are plugged in for several hours per day, but that is not our kids. Some weeks, 2 hours is all they get and often that is watching a family movie together on the weekend. I think on this one, his doctor missed the mark completely and in the process, he really missed being able to help us in any way that would offer some direction for us and some releif for Apollo.
Melanie and I had to get creative. Internet research, talking with friends who have had children of their own suffer from anxiety, and just good ol' fashion trial-and-error. 3 months later, Apollo is doing much better. He is still battling his feelings of anxiety and still is struggling daily some weeks, but he has improved markedly. Still, he has his days and moments. We make him face his fears, meet them head on, fight them, reason and rationalize. He is winning...yet I fear this is the first round of many battles he will have to face.
Through this battle, we have had some amazing conversations with Apollo about many things; Cancer, heart disease, DNA,viruses, and all things related to the body and health. He wants to know all the ins and outs of everything. Melanie and I have spent many hours with him showing him diagrams and reading to him about these very topics. He retains so much information and constantly processes what he learns. He is not easily placated. He wants the facts and wants to know everything about a topic.
"Can you catch cancer like a cold? Like if someone sneezes on you?" he asks, horrified at the thought, "But you said that cancer can grow and move around the body in the blood and spread to other areas, so if someone has lung cancer and they cough or sneeze in your face, aren't they spreading cancer? and cant you breath in those cancer cells and then they will start growing in
your body? How do you know that can't happen? If the doctors don't know how or why cancer starts and they don't know how to stop it, then how do you know that people can't catch it from other people? How do you know that Johnny didn't get cancer from someone with cancer sneezing on him? How do you know grandpa Joe didn't get cancer from touching one of his friends that had cancer?"
These are actual questions from my 7-year-old. His mind is far beyond where my mind was at seven and I suspect most other kids his age as well. The best we can do is help him answer the questions, redirect his emotions, breath, reason out his anxiety, and rationalize with himself. We want him to have complete control of his anxiety but at the same time, we want to nurture the part of his brain that is so introspective and analytical. Maybe a Phoenix will be born from these ashes.
The nights have gotten better as spring has settled into our area. Orion is off his inhalers and is simply the most charming little boy that any parent can ask for. Even though the "Animal" part has gone dormant until next fall, he still likes to attack me like a wild banshee, but to everyone else, he is very sweet.
Apollo is sleeping easier now. He still has questions and "what-if" scenarios. When sleep comes and takes him, I watch, and listen, finding comfort in the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and soft breath. I am thankful. A complete reversal from just a few months ago when I would watch in anguish as his chest labored for each breath. It was tight and constricted. Every third breath was almost a gasp followed by a long sigh. NO amount of reassurance from his doctor that this was "completely normal" was enough to ease my mind. He is asleep! Why do the symptoms not go away when he sleeps?
I awake most nights and find myself headed to Apollo and Orion's room. I listen in the dark. I search their peaceful faces, void of any expression or sign of worry. It's quiet now. I lean over and kiss their foreheads and often find my self whispering to them, "Just Breath."
You find beauty and wonder in even the smallest seed as it germinates, cracks through the soil, and slowly unfurls to greet the sun. "Baby plants are so cute," you say, as you look at them in admiration. 
