This morning, I woke up around 5 AM “obsessed” to write about my hospital experiences – and wrote a nice long ~10,000 word essay, or would be if I brought it to clear complete sentences.
I started out by listing all the hospitals I’d worked in or visited otherwise in my time as a physician over ~30 years – so far 25.
This is after living and working from 8 locations on the planet – including 2 overseas. Almost all left lasting memories.
The vast majority of them unpleasant. If you like yucky stuff – and want to see what lead me to this vision I’d say read on, but I’m just going to skip to the solution.
To answer some of what hospitals offer now – but without the wounds, illnesses, and plastic, I offer the following. Of course it isn’t final. The future will bring even more helpful ideas.
Adult activity theme park – give me a chance here!
Along with the ad-ult (towards our highest and best self) souk collective and cooperative community center to bring ad-ults from different groups together under a common roof, I’d recommend and interactive ad-ult “play” center, for lack of a better word.
They could be based on different themes just as there are both general and specialty hospitals.
Each would be interactive using the senses of sight, smell, touch, and hearing.
I was brought to this idea by the happy faces of my neighbor with his son, this morning after they both came home from our local YMCA. On Sundays it has a (temporary) toddler area set up for children to play in with mats and climbing structures. They get wiped down regularly- because little children can be slobbery!
Because its only open on Sunday, that is when he goes. His child is about 3.
In such places – as you might see also at the mall or supermarket, but without the parental involvement, there are often crawling, sliding, gliding activities and an area for children to sit and play with brightly colored Fischer-Price toys.
(Doctors’ offices often like metal ones stuck on a big wooden cube which guide beads around a closed maze on each side. I don’t like them so much; they practice a child sitting still and doing something ‘futile’ rather than actually progressive, but whatever.)
There’s often a little house a child can venture into (without doors or roof) but windows to look out of- each showing a different directional aspect of the room they’re in.
In these moments, a child has opportunity to experience another set of people. They see other colors than they ordinarily might see (which don’t need be so day-glo).
And if s/he’s using both hands – they’re also not holding onto their dolls and rags (or iphones).
This helps them wean from their clutched anchors to become social -suggesting there’s an outside world beyond their parental nest.
By their visit, they’re are introduced to a “strange” mixture of big and little people who are never the same, no matter how many times, your parent brings you. (The YMCA may well have the same parents every week, since they only offer theirs once – so there’s an increased chance you’ll meet another parent over and again. They will age together.)
Big format activities stimulate body placement consciousness and agility.
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The ad-ult version would have thick spongy dark brown matting so the ground is akin to untrammeled earth. It would have the same “spring quotient” as when you go off trail in the Appalachia’s- a deciduous forest with seasonal heavy shedding as well as firmer areas– like you’d find amongst evergreens.
To enjoy that, you wear special shoes; your “experience” is easy on your feet.
As a park, it is nothing too wild – other than the landscaping meant to emulate various biomes. Some but not all areas would have lots of helpers. Some could be AI robots; others staffed by real hu(e)-mans.
Stick with a natural rainbow of colors with various hues, tints, and tones. Each area would have its own set of fun activities. Like competition courses now have platforms for jumping off of and onto springy areas and participants go from one to another – creating a closed circuit.
There’d be very little risk of real injury – and participants would feel great at the end. At least that’s the goal!
When you arrive, you change into a modified Gi (thick white cotton canvass pants and wrap top like they wear in karate class; no buttons or zippers). You sit down and talk about where you’re coming from – while you “checked in” the night previously.
An ‘attendant’ reviews your “history” and checks your pulse. Depending on if it’s slow or fast – depends on which ‘direction’ they recommend as your starting position.
You get a little ticket like prescription – for your “special needs”. (We all have them, don’t kid yourself.)
An exciting first ride might well be getting in a “fast brightly lit building” which moves and makes noise (like an ambulance with siren). Your strapped in protectively with Velcro tape. When you “arrive” at the first stop on the trip, still on your special gurney, you are whisked down a hall with overhead bright fixtures.
Except you’d not really be moving fast – it is all sound and light effects. And they didn’t really put a needle in your arm – that’s pretend; they gave it a tiny pinch and the squeeze from the tourniquet was a fraction of force.
The people are be real enough – but don’t have to be; some could be humanoid robots.
Emulating an emergent ER entrance – with at least one person holding an IV bag giving a saline drip, so they’re pouring salty water (grounding emotions) into you on arrival, they sing your full name and vowel song. Both off and in unison, along with “I love you”s .
Corny, but we need to let tears flow!
This is the “red” entrance – it has a heart throb subwoofer. your journey morphs into womb-like cozy to become more orangey as you go. At the end of your ‘ride’, you give and receive a nice bow from everyone who helped your whisking activity.
After their ‘hello’, You’re in the Orange Area – this is the “creative center”. Like a state “mental” hospital, where I once visited my mother, they have hands on crafts you can take with you.
Since you might have a membership to such a place, you can keep ongoing projects in your own bin. Here you might learn basket- weaving.
In “yellow are”a”, there’s a bouncy house and a bubble station. Hues are of earth with tint and tone.
The ‘yellow area’ has wands for the solution and recyclable glasses – so when they pop, as bubbles invariably do, solution doesn’t sting your eyes.
You can blow hugely elongate bubbles – or series of smaller ones. They’re set off by different lights.
In reality, it’s biologically ‘friendly’ –mostly a version of plant protein – like aqua faba. And the area is well ventilated.
The green area has thriving attributes. Lots of tall plants – even some artificial.
This one has climbing up areas – as well as climbing down ones.
There are safety nets and ladders. The nets are for climbing on – and with ladders, to connect to separate poles.
There is an “easy” way to complete the course for start to finish, and more difficult ones – encouraging further visits. These are coded like ski slopes- if that’s part of their plan. One is even level.
At most it’s a few feet off the ground – and recall, the whole place is springy under foot so even if you fall, you’ll barely wound – but perhaps get a little burning sensation – the floor is ‘plastic’ after all – it warms easily with friction like our atmospheric environment currently.
Traversing this section helps with the sense we come to our own finish line despite ups and downs.
And this is spider’s view of the world as she balloons herself to a new situation and staging area.
Since this requires using their grip – they also receive gloves so hands don’t get hot spots, callouses, or blisters.
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The blue area might have a trampoline obstacle course in which you skipped or bounced along a path. This path would vary too – some would be more fixed and stable. I’m also seeing a ‘ferris wheel’ (like a tilt table) you lie on it while it slowly rotates – so you get an inversion experience.
Perhaps you’ll try your hand with various versions of violin-like instruments.
You could crawl through a big blue tube –that had some darker areas- and come out to a bright blue opening with a picture of you projected onto a blue screen – but you aren’t blue – so you stand out. It is lined with thick plush carpet, so your knees don’t hurt.
In the blue area might be a ‘wettish ride’ or slip and slide. Then they’ll get to wear a slicker over their white garb while your body gets a plunge.
Near the end, like each experience before, it starts to merge with its neighboring color as it gives way to the new hue.
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The purple area, a mixture of red and blue – is for ‘dressing up’ – with helpers.
They give special attention to a part of you that needs or wants touching. Without actually breaking anything, you could get a cast applied. Or have a sham operation – and get a semipermanent tattoo of a puffy repaired wound.
You could get wrapped up like a mummy. After your arm(s) or leg(s) are swaddled in cotton sheath, warm plaster is applied followed by another layer of wrap. This could be scented with rose, ylang-ylang, pine or coconut.
Then plaster hardens – and your joint(s) gets a rest. You’d walk a bit stiffly; they’d take it all off before you leave-it’s sawed off at the end of your visit. The casting procedure and removal would have to be an add-on charge, but nothing crazy like it is now.
(Maybe they can develop a ‘zipped in’ surrogate, but there’s probably more healing in winding the wraps.)
This gives opportunity for a sense of metamorphosing and being reborn as the wraps come off- and which does happen in a life.
(Plenty of individuals would sign up for the job – and like every aspect of its exercise -at least 7% of the population, l’Ove to feel helpful and caring. Even though its “sham”, it’s the touching they adore with ‘safe’ procedures for doing it.)
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If you signed up for home visits – another option, a nurse-like helper could come change it for a couple of weeks. And give your arms and legs a little massage – to help circulation. Really this is just another version of hands-on healing without being sick. They might like to hear your stories.
Mixed between these rainbow areas are suddenly spouting fountains, so you’ll want to wear bulky rain clothing when you go through this area. There are hooks at each end to leave the jackets for the next visitor.
Media kiosks show cinema pictures of similar programs in different parts of the country.
Outside there’s be a magic mirror maze. This is enclosed in a tall grove with a designated path – like the ‘yellow brick road’. You won’t get lost.
It starts out tending to the right, similar to a spiral; you go in one way, and leave another. It sometimes has bridges that bring you to new territory. This is unlike many labyrinths now that end up again at the same place – which isn’t any version of reality.
Along the way are ‘stations’ where large mirrors adorn the area ringed with lights – so you are the star in the middle. Each area is different than the other; you can see yourself against different backgrounds. Perhaps there’s a holographic projection aspect – which changes the landscape seasonally.
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After playing all day – a being’s got to rest and re-establish themselves.
For that there would be a lovely spa-like boutique hotel experience set alongside a lazy man-made stream – which you cross each time to get to the hotel lobby.
It serves orange blossom ice-tea on arrival. Your room has aromatherapy appropriate for your dosha – which you ascertained earlier on-line when you booked your ‘experience’ package. It is contained and has a bright neutral palate – with birch-like veneer. The bed is just right – your mattress can be varied -just as your pillow is at the Weston now.
Depending on your preferences, your meals agree with your dosha – whether you Vata, Pitta, or Kapha. So, a combo of crunch, zesty, and soothing-similar to a taco.
In reality, just as “Color Me Beautiful” the book about color analysis based on seasons is ‘over-simplified’ and whether one looks better in warmer or cooler colors, we have certain inherent polarities.
And like more advanced color analysis is much more nuanced, than is suggested, our flame of self is likewise.
While polarities are extreme now –immersed in a mostly toxic world, we’ll come to be more tridoshic- a balanced mixture of all three, as our understanding of language and thoughts evolve and our cadence relaxes and becomes kindlier.
Everything ~good and helpful about today’s hospital system can be re-imagined so as to support further growth and autonomy.
As if using a Laplace transformation – mapping an old coordinate system onto a new one by applying a formula or operation- but you need an open mind.
We can recreate helpful scenarios without jabbing needles, poisoning, producing toxic waste, and emitting a river of plastic – when a little pinch will do.
Naturally there will be “accidents” and “illnesses” that require special attention – these are to be addressed in a separate essay about ‘healing’ centers. Because most “accidents” and “illnesses” are the result of doggedly overdoing it as our collective has unhealthy boundaries, most are unnecessary – if we listen to our bodies.
Unlike today’s healing centers that are designed to overwhelm and intimidate – tall glaring structures without fresh air, these are collaborative.
Buildings are less ostentatious and more naturally attractive. They are decidedly low-tech as far as using metal and gadgets – and are inclusive – not catering to privacy which, to my mind, is extremely isolating and deepens our ruts of ‘different-ness’.
The fact is, once we release our panoply of parsing judgments and focus our hands and heart on what we want, illness, or as I think of it, “I’ll-ness”, won’t be as powerful a currency as it is now.
Here are some other essays that deal with healing:
