Bath time is when many parents first notice it. A small pit or a soft fullness just in front of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or a midline swelling that moves when the child swallows. The next morning the same parents sit in my Hawthorne clinic asking whether this is “just a swollen gland. I have answered that question in the clinic and, on occasion, taken the same child to the operating room at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. Those moments sit inside the true surgical stories I tell in Breathless: Surgical Tales from the Brink (and Back), available directly on Amazon.