Sweet Tooth.

Spring Break.  A collective sigh from all school children.  A departure from the classroom monotony and lessons.  Fun.  Sun.  And, for the lucky kids, a trip somewhere with family.

Spring Break for the parents of preschool age children is feared.  All moms who adore their sweet little toddlers are quaking with nervousness as the time approaches.  An entire week with my kids -- now, what to do?!  How will I keep them occupied?  One answer.

Doctors appointments.

Well a couple appointments anyways.  We kick the week off with some fun RAST testing for Dylan's food allergies.  It's almost an ironic reminder leading into a holiday weekend of the seriousness and regard for Dylan's food allergies.  I sometimes forget the whole food allergy thing...  seriously.  It may sound insane.  We have Epi-Pens and the whole sha-bang.  But my brain has hardwired CF to the top of the list.  I run everything through the "CF filter" so to speak.  So the annual trip to allergist to be reminded of how much more diligent I should be in is definitely just what I need.  (Laying sarcasm on heavily here.)

The new allergist is located in New York City at Mt. Sinai on 5th Avenue off of Madison Avenue.  Funny how years ago, 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue had very different meaning for my young, shoppaholic self.  A lifetime ago.  A wardrobe ago.

My entire morning starting at 6 am battling New York bound traffic over the GW bridge... obliterated.  The allergy test results prove what we already knew.  Yep.  Allergies.  You bet.  Stay focused.  Read labels.  And be vigilant.  Repeat.  My heart sinks and my hope for another year of peanut butter gluttony has - poof! - disappeared.

The remaining days leading up to Easter weekend are spent with my boys building forts inside and playing in the yard outside, when they are not in fist-fights and screaming matches, that is.  Well, until Friday, more specifically Good Friday.  Weeks back I scheduled the boys' regular dentist visit for the week of Spring Break.  We had been needing to find dental care in New Jersey, but other things have trumped seeing the dentist.  But now it is time.  When scheduling the appointment, I guess that I didn't connect the dots that I had scheduled the appointment on Good Friday leading into Easter weekend.

With my husband off work, it is ideal.  On this day, the parent to kid ratio is 2 to 2.  Thankfully.  We are game on with our man-to-man defense.  Our family walks into the beautifully decorated family dental practice.  Lovely ivory wainscoting paneled walls.  State of the art gold digital frames on the wall cycle kid's artwork they have gifted the office.  The reception area has a museum feel to it, but warmer and more inviting.  There are bright red mod sofas and a TV with kids shows.  I sit down at a funky white table and coordinating chairs to begin sifting through the pile of paperwork and my pen scribbles furiously.

NAME.  DOB.  ADDRESS.  INSURANCE.  BLAH BLAH BLAH.  I wish I had a dollar for every piece of medical paperwork I have filled out in my life.  I'd be rich.  The next thing...   LIST ALL MEDICATIONS OF PATIENT.  Ha ha.  They must be joking.  I didn't even think of it since we were at a dental office...  not a traditional doctor's office.  I should just carry around a medication list so I never need to scribble furiously again.  My hand begins cramping from my wrist to the heel and through my palm.  As I continue through the sheets of information, I realize I have to write everything all over...  TWICE.  Groan.

As we are waiting in the brightly lit, immaculate office, Dylan loudly asks for COOKIES.  Then he demands FRUIT SNACKS even louder.  He makes his wants clear in such a billowy voice, the message reverberates harshly off the dark wood floor and the walls.  I could swear I heard an echo.  Completely awesome.  My kid in a dental office, meeting a new dentist for the first time, is DEMANDING sugary cookies and candy.  My husband I laugh and tell him no, not now, he has to visit the dentist then we will think about it.  It's a superhuman feat, but I finish with the necessary forms and hand them over to the receptionist.

After some time, my husband steps out for a work conference call.  Now it's the dreaded Zone Defense.  The dentist comes out greets us and walks us into his office to talk first.  We discuss the boys' Cystic Fibrosis in-depth and my keen awareness about the need for critical dental care.

You see, CF medications and nebulized treatments can sit on teeth and cause greater risk for staining teeth.  They can also erode surfaces of teeth and create an ideal environment for cavities and tooth decay.  Layer on top of all of that the CF high-calorie diet including milk products that can sit on teeth, the sugary "crap" calories just to pack some calories in finicky tots, and the super busy schedule "it's easy to forget the morning brushing ritual".  Those little mouths are a cavity's dreamland.

Dylan and Michael play with the dentist's calculator and shiny silver lamp while we talk.  I can't help but shake the Willy Wonka images that are floating in and out of my head as the dentist scans the paperwork.  Monstrous rainbow lollipops.  He reviews the medication list gently tracking each one with his index finger.  Gooey taffy gum drops.  He looks up through his glasses, smiles tautly, and looks back down at more family history.  A chocolate river.  He finishes reviewing their lives in black and white medical paperwork as I rub my jaw anxiously.

My husband meets up with us again as we arrive at a room with an empty dental chair.  Michael pleasantly hops up in the chair and listens to all the directions from the dentist.  He kicks back with his feet crossed casually at his ankles and watches TV while the dentist works away to clean and examine his teeth.  Dylan climbs around the room and plays with the stuffed animals.  He glances over at Michael occasionally.  Then Dylan tries reaching for things on the counter.  It's a close call as I grab for his little hand trying to reach into the 'hazardous materials' garbage hole in the counter.  He is anxious, bored, and trying to find anything to entertain himself.  My husband and I look at each other knowing that Dylan's turn is coming next.

And it won't be pretty.

When Michael finishes, he hops out of the chair and into my lap.  My husband tries coaxing Dylan into the seat.  "Look at the cool TV you can watch"...  "Look at the monkey on the dentist's lamp"...  "You can hold the lady bug"...  You can hold Mommy's necklace..."  All to no avail.  Dylan begins to resist when Daddy tries to pick him up and put him in the chair.  He goes limp.  Then he slides off the chair.  Then he hits, kicks, whatever he can even the dental assistant.  The topper is when he starts crying and throwing a full-blown tantrum.  He screams and begs for fruit snacks.  Or cookies.  Or both.  "I want froo nacks.  Froo nacks.  Cookies!!  I want Mommy!  Froo nacks!!"  These were often used for bribes to get the boys to stand on the scale at the Pulmonologist's office to get weighed.  It has come full circle to embarrass me in the dentist's office.  I can feel myself flush and I hug Michael.

It takes the strength of my husband and some delicate work by the dentist to get an abbreviated flouride treatment in Dylan's little mouth.  Poor kid is still screaming for fruit snacks through the entire 4 minutes.  The scene is laughable and insane.  As hard as it is, the dentist tries to console me as my face is contorted probably conveying a freaked out mom expression.  He explains Dylan is not the first with this reaction and unfortunately there are certain cases where they stop and others where they proceed.  Clearly, in Dylan's situation it's best to proceed.  Let him experience a dental visit once to understand he won't be hurt, it isn't that scary and he'll then have some time to process it.  I can't tell if it's scarier for sweet Dylan.  Or me.

As tough as it is, I know that the dentist is quite possibly right.  As we leave, Dylan is heap of tears and frustration.  A consolation prize of a tooth sticker is just not acceptable.

*  *  *

Two days later, I wake up Easter morning to use the washroom.  I am groggy and stumble out the door into my dark bedroom.  I see Michael's light turn on.  I peak through the crack of my bedroom door and watch him appear at his bedroom door.  He is standing on the verge of his Easter morning adventure in the doorway to the hall.   His messy hair is standing straight up on one side and he is staring down at the floor.  I can tell he sees them.  He looks back and forth and smiles.  His amazement becomes clear across his face.  I bolt into bed so he won't see me.  He bounds into our room.  "He came!  There are tracks on the fwoor.  Come see!"  I grab my camera and head out with him.  My husband right behind us.  I start snapping pictures as he follows the trail of tiny white powdery rabbit prints.

He beams a beautiful smile that would make any dentist proud when the tracks lead him to two brightly colored empty Easter baskets.  This four-year-old knows exactly what to do.  He starts right to work searching for his treasured eggs.

After Michael has located all of his eggs and then some, he helps smiley, groggy Dylan to find all of his.

Michael points and excitedly shouts, "Wook there Dyl!  Wook there!"  and "Aww, siwee Bunny.  That one is tricky.  Wook.  He hid one there!"  In no time, a collection of plastic eggs litters the floor with goodies, coins and toys.

It is a day of a full-on assault of sugar.  A candy bonanza of the Easter Bunny's doing.  A family tradition of Fannie May Chocolate Foil Wrapped Eggs and Bunnies.  Followed by Sweetarts.  Skittles.  Starburst (or as Dylan calls them, "StarZurst").  Tic Tacs.  LolliPops.  Mentos.  And who knows what else.  A pastel mosaic of bubble gum pinks, lemony yellows, spring greens, blissful blues, and pleasant purples.  What that bunny thinking?!  By 8 am I make both of them brush their teeth from the onslaught of sugar already in a tepid bath in their kid mouths.

All throughout the day, Dylan hoists himself up onto the counter to retrieve his bowl o' candy.  This child needs no help.  Just plants his hands on the counter above his head, engages his core strength, and pulls himself up and onto the counter.  His strength and agility have always astounded me.  We discourage him from doing this but it doesn't matter.  The treasure chest on the black granite counter is just too tempting.

Every holiday I dump the boys' candy into a bowl (or two)... this goes for all the kid-sacred holidays.  Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's, Easter...  This way, I can monitor how much they are eating and when.  With chocolate and other high-fat goodies, I need to give them enzymes beforehand so they don't get belly-aches.  With peanut and nut allergies lurking, all candy monitoring in the kitchen is a must.  And while we are liberal with candy dispensing and eating, I do want some sort of control over knowing what they are putting in their mouths.  That Damn Easter Bunny.

By the end of Easter night, bedtime has been delayed a good hour.  Treatments take longer to get underway and I haphazardly turn on a new Backyardigans show...  Michael points out that the show is really long.  I check the DVR and realize that I teed up an hour long Easter special.  So I let them enjoy the rest of Easter night and stay up a bit later than usual watching their show.  The machines roar and they listen intently through their headphones.  I watch the show with no sound, just the whirr of the machines helping my boys with clearing their lungs.

It is bedtime and the whole family is exhausted.  Time to brush teeth one last time...

The boys are sporting their new pajamas, quite possibly the only practical gift left in Easter baskets and are ready to brush their teeth.  They discuss the colorful dragons that adorn their new jams.  I gently help Dylan scrub all his teeth as he sings octaves, higher and higher of "ah.  Ah.  aH.  AH!!"  I remind him to spit.  Same old story.  He swallows and then blows a raspberry into the sink.  I shake my head and laugh.  I know that some day, not very far off, I will miss his inability to spit.  It's only a matter of time.

Afterwards, I ask the boys to take a photo together to commemorate the day together.  Dylan cheerily agrees, Michael has different thoughts.  We spend time disagreeing about taking a simple photo.  He digs in and doesn't back down.  He's like a teenager that just doesn't want to cooperate.

After a total disagreement and then a Mommy-Michael make-up of hugs and "I'm sorry's", all is right as the boys settle into bed on Easter night.

I collapse into bed.  I am feeling exhausted and not surprisingly, I feel like I am coming down with something.  I realize that I haven't yet brushed my teeth.  Bah!  That Easter Bunny.  My mind slows.  I get distracted thinking about that Easter Bunny and all the magic of the day.  Michael's smiles and their cheers.  The excitement of each colored egg and the treasure revealed each time.  The hustle and bustle of the week.  And I try to settle into my bed brain with the same blessed perspective of our lives.

Before I know it, I am drifting off in a pleasant slumber.  The last thoughts stroll through my head before I fully fade away...  Yeah, pretty sure I didn't brush my teeth...  Damn Easter Bunny and tooth decay...  Well, at the very least the boys brushed theirs...

Even with the food allergies.  And the tantrums.  And the doctor appointments.  Even with the arguments.  And the regimen of CF treatments.  And the stressful spring break week.  And all the insanity of each sunrise and sunset.  Even with a likely few cavities along the way...

Most days, being a parent is a pretty sweet deal.

This much I know.

Salty and Sweet.

Autumn air and sunshine fill my afternoons driving Michael and Dylan to Michael's preschool most days of the week.  We talk about the pretty landscape and play games calling out "Leaf!" when we see a leaf drifting to the ground.  I just love hearing Dylan say to me, "Wook, the weaves are dancing, Mommy.  Dey are dancing," pointing to the leaves blowing along the street from a breeze and passing cars.

We have more nature in two weeks than one can really take in.  A flock of wild turkeys crosses a busy road near our neighborhood.  I literally have to slow the car because two of them are starting to cross but decide to draw back and continue to reside on someone's front yard.  We would see the same flock a week or so later.  A massive, neon green grasshopper greets me on the windshield of my car.  We spot an inching gray and black caterpillar trying to find a home near our patio.  The boys play caterpillars for days after this sighting.

And deer.  Oh the deer.  They are in our front yard, our neighbor's yard, they are crossing the busy street to Michael's school.  They are eating.  They are staring.  They are everywhere.  I am still stunned when I drive down our neighborhood street and see six of them hanging out.  Ahh, nature all around us.  Funny how nature is at the very root of everything.

Even more routine than our wild life sightings around suburban New Jersey are the busy morning Cystic Fibrosis treatments that jump start our days. Around 7 am, I rev the boys' machines up and the unmistakable thrum of the orchestra begins.   The decibel level has skyrocketed since the arrival of Michael's new nebulizer compressor.  It is hospital grade and it is a bad-ass machine.  His other compressors just couldn't survive with the demands of daily treatments.  The increased volume in our home has become typical and the boys have learned to accept watching TV on volume 100, no joke.  I, too, have had to accept it.

I fumble around awkwardly brewing a cup of Keurig coffee in the kitchen while the ear-deafening sounds of Nick Jr. throttle the family room .  Now, this machine was made for me, I am certain.  My Keurig is simple, it is brainless, it makes a great cup of coffee.  And it is QUIET.

I say a morning prayer for my gratitude for my boys' health, the machines and the meds that keep them that way.  As I sip my steaming hot cup of coffee, I peer into the family room where the boys are shaking from their vest airway clearance treatments and their nebulizers are steaming away.  This morning's prayer is for the medicine misting through Dylan's mask and Michael's mouthpiece at this moment.  And it is not what you might expect.  It is simply salt water.

Something so basic.  So earthly, it's ridiculous.  No super crazy science (well, I am sure there was some that went into it), but no chemical compounds or medicinal discovery...  salt water.

Isak Dinesen, a literary legend, once wrote,

"The cure for everything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea."

In the case of Cystic Fibrosis, I am convinced this quote couldn't be more true.

The sterile salt water is the hydration that their little lungs so need.  Because Cystic Fibrosis interferes with the fine balance of salt and water in the body, the boys' lungs, intestines, pancreas, and sinuses, and other "tubes" of the body become dry.  Fluids that normally flow through these areas of the body are replaced with dryness and a sludge that clogs the organs and passageways in the body.

So I have heard, this special salt water called "Hypertonic Saline" was discovered by a pulmonologist in Australia.  Whether it is truth or myth, the story goes that he began to notice that a subset of his patients were markedly healthier than his others.  And when he began to do some digging on the underlying reason why he realized that that those patients that were surfers tended to have better lung health.  The theory was that the natural conditions of the salt water from the ocean in combination with the cardio activity helped those patients with better lung hydration and better clearance in their airways of those sluggish secretions that form.  Supposedly, he began to wonder since there was noticeably better lung health for his surfing patients going into the ocean, was there a way to bring the benefits of the ocean to patients?

I set my coffee mug down and continue to watch the steam swirling out of the holes in Dylan's mask and Michael's mouthpiece valve.  Salt water.

I believe that this drug, Hypertonic Saline, which the boys breathe in twice a day for about 20 minutes is incredible.  I really am banking on this drug in the worst of the cold season this year.  I feel good knowing that both boys are treated with it every day.

Imagine needing to clean your kitchen and having a damp sponge...  the cleaning possibilities are endless!  There is so much a wet sponge can tackle.  But take a dry sponge, hard and almost rigid.  It is scratchy and menacing, certainly not pleasant and in no way up for the cleaning task.

Now imagine the value of adding just a little water to one side of the sponge... what happens?  The sponge will continue to soak the water up drawing it further and further in, practically seeking more water.  Saturate the entire sponge and what next?  You can wring out the water after cleaning with the sponge easily and disposing of the yuk water you no longer need.  This is basically how I envision Hypertonic Saline to work and I believe there is immense value in it's daily treatment for the boys.

Their lungs soak up the salt water up because they need it.  And once their are hydrated that can more easily "wring" out their lungs and dispose of the sludge and yuk stuff that is hanging out in their airways.

I am startled out of my daze while picturing just how this medicine is getting down into their lungs.  Dylan is yelling over the machines, over the TV and through his mask that his mask is "Swippin".  Translation his mask is falling off, it is slipping.  I dart into the other room to help him.  And so our day begins.

By bedtime, everyone is exhausted after our post-school treatments, dinner, bath, books and bed.  There are so many parents who feel my exhaustion right along with me.  By 6 pm you are just ready to pass out.  On this night both boys are in their beds by 7:30 and the house is silent for some time.  They are tucked in and I believe have fallen to sleep.  My husband is still at work, so I decide to take a minute on the couch to catch the days headlines on the news.

I jump when I hear Dylan begin whining loudly and I head up to his room.  I can't get up to his room fast enough.  He says loudly in his deep toddler voice, "Mommy, you didn't come, I called you and you didn't come.  I scared somebody take me."  He is anxious and unsettled.  I help him back into his wee toddler bed, and he scrunches down under his covers.

He is so tired as he is blinking his eyes close.  I think for a moment he is playing a joke since his blinking is so exaggerated.  I gently stroke his hand and he quietly smacks his mouth and opens his eyes wearily at me.  He pats my hand closes his eyes.  He whispers something inaudible and pushes my hand.  "What, Dylan?" I gently ask.  He is almost an actor out of a Hollywood drama.  My little boy whispers, with his eyes still closed, "Go, Mom."  He is nearly asleep and restful.  I am in awe.  He needed one last comfort from me and was ready to drift off in slumber.  The drama of his performance is almost Oscar worthy. 

I exit the brief scene, which I plan to submit to the Academy first thing in the morning and I head downstairs to brew another cup of coffee.  Exhausted and pondering what next as I wait for the speedy brew to finish.  Easy answer.  I pop a sea salt caramel in my mouth.  I chew it slowly enjoying the salty bite and the contrasting sugary sweetness.  The punch of the salty crunch curbs the gooey chocolate caramel.  I love these.  These are a bite of therapy.

I feel the corners of my mouth curl up and I fight the grin that emerges.

Sea.

Salt.

Caramel.

Guess that vast ocean really can be the cure for everything.