The question generally comes after a few sleepless nights. A parent at the Hawthorne clinic will describe to me how the child snores so loudly that the whole house hears it, or how breathing seems to stop for a few seconds before a gasp. Occasionally the worry is daytime. The toddler who can’t sit still at preschool or wakes with a dry mouth is often the same child who has trouble breathing at night. Hundreds of times I’ve heard versions of “Why does my child have trouble breathing at night?” Some of those nights end in the operating room at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, where the same anatomy that creates the noise becomes the target of meticulous airway work. Those stories are told in Breathless: Surgical Tales from the Brink (and Back), which is available on Amazon.