#53 The squirrel comes home, again

That stent in the liver has worked a treat so the first line of this blog finishes with a, fuck yeah!

I knew before anyone that the endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) was a success because my first wife was getting more growlier by the day.  

Hospital this time around was actually quite a pleasant experience. Apart from regular interruptions by doctors, nurses, cleaners and room service, I kinda hogged Marjana for her entire stay. Well, me in person and our Croatian family back home via video, of course.

Was kinda nice hanging with her all day every day over the last week. Nothing we ain’t been doing for the last 25 years, just in a different environment. Kind of a forced holiday so to speak, but in hospital. Lucky we don’t hate each other I s’pose.

So yeah, sorry ’bout not sharing her much lately but she’s improving day by day. By that, I mean her liver not working has changed to working mode. Not that cunty cancer though. Nah she’s still fucked from that big time but with the immediate liver issue sorted, she’s fading back to her more olive coloured skin colour. Dalmatian olive, as in the colour I just made up and not the stone fruit.

Once we’re home and settled we’re hoping for bit more of an opportunity to share her around with y’all but there’s a couple of issues though.

She’s been so fucked up over the last few months that she hasn’t been able to get vaxed. I mean, she wanted to but hasn’t been healthy enough to actually get it done. That means she’s vulnerable as fuck to COVID and should she become infected, it won’t end well.

We like all kinds of happy endings but when we know an ending ain’t gunna be happy, we’re kinda going with the happy part being the ride towards the end.

That’s all compounded now that our borders are open and COVID positive numbers are growing faster than my nostril hairs (ok, maybe not that fast). The chance of our star character in these stories becoming infected is almost as high as Cheech in that Up in Smoke car scene after picking up Chong.

My sleeping beauty (apparently one can still be a beauty when snoring and doing saxaphone sounding farts when asleep next to me) will be leaving hospital today to return home. Just in time too as the house is a mess and really could do with a vacuum.

Basically, her bilirubin count (liver) is down (that’s good) but her haemoglobin was also down (not good), so she’s waiting on another blood transfusion before custody release papers will be signed.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It’s taken us 25 years to work out Marjana’s spirit animal is a fucking squirrel of all things. She stores all her hospital room service food like she’s living during WWII food stamp era. A modern day prepper of the stage four metastised bowel cancer prepping homies gang. Seriously man, I turn up to hang for the day and she’s offering her hoarded cheese and cracker snacks to fatten me up. If I didn’t have to drive home every night, I’d be bringing a nice merlot to compliment the cheeses.

We’re gunna need a bit of a game plan going forward because basically, we’ve been given a use by date. More on that topic in the next blog, hopefully.

We had a very real chat with our palliative care doctor and the last thing we really want is to cut short the already fleeting time we’ve got left because of a COVID infection.

Conversations with the palliative care dude, whose a real good cunt by the way, included confronting topics like whether to die at home or in a hospice. It’s kinda an ugly topic to ponder, as are many others for us right now but fuck man, ya gotta look at it from a positive angle and having the option to choose where ya take ya last breath is very much a blessing compared to an unexpected death.

Since our squirrel’s hospital admission, I’ve been spending the day with her. Leave home about 7.30am and usually get home about 9pm. Sort dinner and all that shit, go to bed and wake up to do it all again. Either the first or second morning though, I freaked out big time.

I was woken by a phone call from my first wife… you know, the squirrel one. She said the doctors had reviewed one of her scans, that she’d been in pain overnight, wasn’t too flash and finished by saying ‘Brendon, I think I’m fucked.’

Oh man, my heart sank and I felt sick. Not angry sick like I get from All Black Rugby World Cup losses but just as sad… maybe even worse. I had a piss, brushed my teeth and drove one of the longest 30 minute drives to find out exactly how fucked with the worst possible scenarios taking centre stage in what ‘fucked’ actually meant. Oh yeah, I also got dressed first too.

We ain’t doctors and not really in the know as to how long some cunt can live when their liver’s rooted but with that and that cunty cancer, Marjana felt she didn’t have long at all. I’d like to say that’s all changed now with the liver stent so a little battle was won that buys us more alive time. We prefer alive times, especially compared to dead times.

We are still losing ground on the cunty cancer front though. The cancer is the war too and not just a battle. At least now though, there are options on the table like getting chemo again. Everyone neds a working liver to process all shit that goes into ya body, including of course, poisons such as chemo. In fact, hopefully even have chemo this Wednesday.

Just in case anyone’s wondering, sponge baths are a good timing way to break up cheese and cracker picnics in Mater Private’s Ward 8, especially if you’re the recipient. Not quite as much fun when you’re the one giving them but still, better than a punch in the head.

Tell ya what though, this cunty cancer journey is like fighting a whole heap of different battles on different fronts. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Much like our Mother Earth all being connected and intertwined, so is the human body. If a particular organ is a bit rooted it usually affects another part of the body that may need sorting before the primary issue. That means going places and organising shit and that too now tends to be similarly connected with absolutely everything COVID. Pressure builds and with it stress and the subsequent connected flow-on from that.

But all is not lost people because there’s another interconnected piece to the puzzle that helps counter that entire previous paragraph. It’s the love and support from y’all and that right there is medicinal as fuck. It has helped get us this far. You’re a bunch of real good cunts who’ve made our lives better over the last year and a half. Never enough thank yous for this so I do hope y’all are blessed with an unlimited amount of orgasms.

Me and my squirrel didn’t get to be together at the strike of midnight crossing from 2021 to 2022 but she did survive the year so was nice to see her with a beating heart early on January 1, 2022.

The above I wrote over the last couple days and since then we’ve made it home.

Should’ve seen when the first wife was being wheeled out of hospital though. Anyone watching could’ve been forgiven for thinking she was doing an Olympic victory lap as most of the nurses came out to see her off. She was waving and smiling, as were all the sheilas who’d looked after her. Did everything except sign autographs. Was nice to see her so loved, even by people that only recently met her.

Not sure how many chemos she’s got left in her but game on again tomorrow… actually game on now as didn’t publish this until now and we’re currently doing the Chernobyl thing.