I Like Clean Underwear

Who would have thought that the act of transferring half a basket of wet laundry from the washing machine into the dryer would have become such a Herculean task? It's almost of epic proportions these days, what with limited abilities and weakened arms. Today I tried to get it done. With some leveraging of a grabby stick and positioning of the laundry basked, I managed to dump the laundry into the dryer. At one point, however, I was fairly certain I would have to ask for help.

In fact I do often as for help with laundry these days. More and more, my Health Care Aides are doing this task for me. They take the laundry down the hall, load and start the wash, and when that's done they transfer it to the dryer. Most time I can take it from there, but some days the are here long enough to retrieve, if not fold it. Today the schedule was screwed up thanks to the Coordinators who don't coordinate for my home care agency provider, and someone using the dryers longer than necessary.

I have a kind of personal policy around this. I would prefer to leave someones laundry in whatever machine it is in, rather than taking it out so I can use the machine. I feel it is a kind of intrusion into privacy to handle some strangers clothing and intimate items. It just seems better to wait a bit, rather than rush the issue by unloading laundry and leaving it on the top of the machine while I go ahead and do mine. I am just not in that kind of rush.

Sadly, this policy may have to change soon, especially in light of my increasing limitations. I will soon have to depend on the HCA's to do all parts of the process, or ask someone else to help me if and HCA runs out of time. In some cases I may have to ask someone to come over and help me finish the process, meaning my own laundry could concievably sit in the machine for hours as I wait.

Who would have thought that one of the defining moments of my independence would come down to having clean underwear? It seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?