The waiting room for the friends and families of surgery and surgical ICU patients is perhaps the most uncomfortable place in the hospital outside of actually being in surgery or the ICU.

Friends and family members sign in at a desk so that a receptionist can call you when the surgeons have finished or when you can visit. A screen, much like an arrivals and departures screen in an airport, tracks patients through the stages from checking in to recovery. A coffee station sits behind the reception area with a fairly complicated machine that causes back-ups in the line. The t.v. volume doesn’t intrude, but is tuned to Fox, this being Texas. There are only chairs, no love seats, no sofas, no recliners. Nothings invites relaxation. Nothing allows a quick nap. When the room fills, you move to a dark nook down the hall with the singular virtue of being quieter.

This set up seems to work for people awaiting surgical patients. The room fills in the morning, when most operations are scheduled, and gradually empties as the day progresses. They go to the patient’s room and wait there. Those rooms have recliners, better chairs. They expect overnight guests.

For those awaiting ICU patients, not so much. You take turns during the visiting hours, and wait during all of the others. You go to dinner or lunch. You go home at night, or to your hotel if you aren’t staying in town. You can’t sleep there, or you sleep too much. Any minute you are away, any minute you aren’t somewhere close to be contacted, to move quickly, to feel like you have some sense of control or influence or access to information, adds stress.

Worse, every one of those minutes allows you to put the crisis out of your mind for a moment, and then you feel guilty. What if something happens and here you are getting drunk on Scotch and Prosecco? What if something happens and you are having a laugh at Goode Company? What if something happens and you are yelling at Morning Joe about Trump? How can you possibly be normal, think about normal things while he is in there begging for water or can’t even find the words to beg for water? How can you do anything but sit in a waiting room and wait?

Except, you would like to put your feet up. You would like to rest your eyes for a moment. You would like to be a bit more comfortable as you worry and wait without having to wander too far. You would like a place to wash up. You are tethered to your patient, and a space to remain so while also attending to the basic mental needs of rest and would help so much more.