Waiting room or time warp

I had the unpleasant experience, again after many years, of having to wait in a hospital waiting room. While waiting for my beloved wife to come out of surgery, elective surgery can be just as scary, I was taken back to the many waiting rooms of my childhood. My mother had congenital heart problems and spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. Although these problems eventually caught up with her several years ago and I have not had to sit in that particular Purgatory since, but it is still hard.

They are all different and yet all the same. Uncomfortable chairs, old magazines, a TV bolted to the wall that never shows anything interesting, the same worried expressions on different people with the same thoughts and fears and the most common thread, time has stopped. There are seldom windows and 10 minutes or 10 hours feels the same, like years. Over the years I have developed the skill of sleeping in a chair or in extreme cases sleeping on the waiting room floor, although, as a former nurse I believe that any floor in a hospital is the dirtiest place one can find. Sleeping is obviously important and sometimes an escape, waking up and not knowing where you are and then the anxiety comes crashing in when you remember where you are is terrible.
My wife is now fine, sore but getting better I still feel for anybody caught in that particular corner of Hell where time does not exist and all one can do is wait and worry.