I’m Afraid To Do My Laundry by Stephanie L. Haun
Thursday used to be laundry day.
I’ve been afraid to do my laundry since that Thursday. It’s been a little over two months, and while I’ve been afraid, I’ve faced my fear, and week after week, I have done my laundry—albeit, not on Thursday.
My laundry bag is a large, blue, and natural-color canvas bag from L.L. Bean. It can easily hold two, huge loads of laundry. If the washer doesn’t have an agitator, then those two huge loads could possibly be one, mammoth load. There are no wheels on the bag, and its great height makes it nearly impossible to carry, even at my 5’10”, so I drag it through the house and across the carpet leaving a canvas laundry bag-shaped pathway behind me.
Dragging the bag through the house to the laundry room isn’t particularly strenuous. Dumping the week’s worth of clothes in the washer and—at the end of the wash cycle—transferring that same load to the dryer isn’t particularly strenuous. Dragging the laundry back to the bedroom to hang and fold is definitely not my favorite thing to do, but it’s not strenuous.
The timed dry is set for an hour and a half, and at some point, during that time frame, I sat down and had a heart attack.
That might be putting it simply. There was nothing simple about my cardiac event. It presented itself as a possible panic attack, and after I calmed down, the nagging pain lingered. So, I knew something was different, or odd, but I never suspected myocardial infarction.
I was only 40.
I knew something was amiss. I began to get myself ready to go to the ER, primarily to put my mind at ease, and that’s when I threw up while brushing my teeth. The pain went away, and I thought it was only indigestion. My family forced me to go to the hospital, anyway.
Cardiac Event was still not at the front of my, or anyone else’s, mind. I checked in at the local ER, had an EKG, and then I waited 4 hours to be told that yes, in fact, at some point in the recent past, I had experienced a heart attack and I would not be leaving until a bed at another hospital could be found. I was also informed, many hours later, that there was a woman still in the ER waiting for a bed. She was on Day 6.
I’d been waiting for about 12-13 hours on what amounted to be a gurney, and while I didn’t have many nice words after waiting four hours to be told I had experienced a heart attack, I was definitely lacking manners for many of the hospital staff at the thirteenth hour. Once I was told by the dayshift nurse that I would be waiting for a bed for many days, I not so calmly informed him, “The hell I will!”, and I promptly experienced another cardiac event without feeling anything other than contempt for my situation and the man who told me I would be in Dante’s seventh circle for days until a bed could be found. Amazingly enough, that got me an ambulance ride with lights, sirens, and a bed at another hospital.
The hell I will, indeed.
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Two months, a birthday that might not have happened under different circumstances, and three stents later, I’m still impatient and angry when the situation requires. I’ve been told that I am a bad patient, but I hold steadfastly to the belief that the circumstance and situation dictate my behavior, and I’m actually reactionary in times of distress. I won’t freely admit it, but I might also be a little shit—a little shit who is extremely scared and vulnerable when it comes to doing her laundry.
“I had a heart attack at 40. Physically, I’m mostly back to normal, and since I almost didn’t have a future to look forward to, I mentally struggle with a few thoughts and fears that I can only tackle one at a time—in the present—because nothing is like it was before. The laundry was waiting to be put away when I got out of the hospital, and the following Thursday, I had to figure out how I was going to do the laundry again without coming close to death. Instead, I managed to make it until Monday, and that’s when the new laundry day was born. I like doing my laundry on Mondays. If my laundry is going to take me out of this life, then it’s not going to ruin my hard-earned weekend in the process.
I’ve given up on trying to place it “as is” somewhere. I feel like the shortness of the piece is important. Some journals that have rejected it have commented that they felt like it’s not a finished piece. I’m usually willing to make whatever revisions editors deem important, but for some reason, I’m not willing to concede on this one. It feels wrong to change this piece.”
Stephanie L. Haun holds an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Creative Nonfiction from Queens University of Charlotte. Previous works have been published in The Write Launch, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Smart Set, Drunk Monkeys, and Beyond Words. Stephanie is a Perry Mason fanatic, an avid knitter, and a sometimes trombonist. She can be found on Twitter (@shaunwriter) and Facebook/Instagram (@stephaniehaunwriter). Her website is www.stephaniehaun.com.