What Mass General Needs

Hell, this is a MUST for any medical institution.

At some point in each of our lives, we have and/or will spend an unseemly number of hours in hospital.

Some of that is because we’re the lucky duck //snark and snort// being knocked out with brain stealing anesthetics, sliced open like a Thanksgiving turkey (yes, I went there), forced to pee IN BED in a bottle or pan or through a tube, fed breakfasts which were tasteless, cold and just plain odd 50 years ago, when the kitchen first dispatched them.

Some of that inordinate med center time is because one of our mega-loved ones is having all the big fun.

Sucks either way.

My Navy linguist BFF Kevin, R.I.P., told me that war was this -- long, horrendously boring hours, broken up by brief-ish shit-your-pants-terrifying periods.

Yup, that about covers hospital stays.

Given this -- I’ve come up with THE perfect prescription. The cure for all that sick bay stress and waiting room monotony (those two year old People mags, those three year old Times just don’t make the entertainment/relax-me grade).

Put a BIG ass spa in on the first floor.

Yeah, a Blue Lagoon type joint with in-water massages, Silica Salt Glow and Massage, Nourishing and Glowing Algae Treatment and bigger than Olympic size geothermal pool isn’t available or possible, probably, but this is the idea!

Feature it -- the love of your life has just been taken into the OR. You’re a stress monster, about to explode in wracking sobs, hysterical screams of worry and/or fear inspired heights of gluttony at the not-awful-but-def-not-fab cafeteria. What to do?

Get yourself to the spa floor STAT!

You walk in the door -- it looks like every other office entry save for one thing. The identifying plaque reads ‘Restorative Center.’

The interior walls are painted in muted, exquisite shades of sea blue. On each surface, there’s a clever, little, organic vase with just one African Daisy happily standing.

Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn  is purring subtly out of the sound system.

Your Soothing, Restorative Time guide materializes as if out of thin air. If male, he’s Alan Alda calming. If female, she’s Oprah-esque. Whoever you need, that’s who it is. My Alan Alda is handing me a flute of Prosecco with a slice of strawberry bobbing in the wee wake as he glides over to bring me into this adult womb.

You just KNOW you’re gonna be cosseted and cherished and that's just what you need.

After a wondrous soak in a bubbling hot tub, a long sit and space in a redwood lined sauna, a deep tissue massage done by a person whose manual dexterity would make Glenn Gould seem ham-handed and inept and a haircut/style that will make me and my bunny furred head look and feel like Penélope Cruz I think I can go out and face the world again. I could scale Everest in shorts and flip flops. I could handle any news, no mater how vague, grey and not happy-ending-ish.

This THIS is what’s needed on those long pressurized, tension packed days while you’re waiting for the good surgeon to work wonders on your Amazing Partner/Parent/Sister/Brother/Progeny/Whoever.