The Uncomfortable Wait For Help

The sounds of coughs, cries and sneezes resonated off the lobby windows as the dry smell of bandages and disinfectant filled the air. For patients waiting in the emergency room at the Central Texas Medical Center, tranquility and comfort are nowhere to be found.
Every so often, people would file in though the entrance to the waiting room and be asked to take a seat, only to be called back to the front desk minutes later to fill out the necessary paper work. Sometimes they would be called back a few additional times for even more forms.
There was a Hispanic mother and child sitting quietly by themselves, the young boy wearing a white hospital wristband and holding tightly to a small yellow blanket. Across the room, another woman worked to calm her anxious son, who was also wearing a wristband.
After some time, a man who had been sitting alone and nervously glancing around the lobby got up to limp to the water fountain for a drink.
There was a large, bronze sculpture of Jesus Christ hanging bolted to the wall, with an engraving above it that read "Fear not. For I am with you... Isaiah 41:10." Closer to the entrance was a large flat-screen TV, where an episode of the cable crime series NCIS showed a man shoot a woman point blank in the face.
Only the laughs and cheery voices of two elderly women broke out above the uncomfortable ambience. Though one sat in a wheelchair, their joyfulness provided a momentary lapse in the ominous wait.
It's no wonder people hate going to the hospital.