Category: The Cancer Chronicles

Windows. I’m gunna talk about windows for a bit.

Before I get into it though, let’s look through the rectangle window and what do we see? What we don’t see is the kiss a son just gave his Mama after taking her for a drive.

We look through windows and most open and shut. Our little issue with windows right now though is that my first wife’s window of health is getting shorter and shorter and it’s a dirty fucking cunt of a window to be honest.

I started this particular blog well over a month ago and have struggled big time with it. It may feel a little disjointed as I couldn’t get the original draft out way back when, so apologies if it comes across too long and clunky.

Somewhere amongst the disjointed-ness we did manage a high school graduation dinner recently.

Chemo obviously helps fight cancer and shit but like I tell our kids, every action has a reaction and the same can be said about Chernobyl Day. The good that comes from chemo goes hand in hand with the bad as Marjana feels like shit for a while after.

Initially, it wasn’t too bad but as time’s ticked away over the last year or so, the effects have worsened and with that the window of being healthy enough to do shit seems to be closing more and more.

About six weeks ago for example, my poor little cancer riddled first wife felt like shit and had temperatures before her last Chernobyl Day. We even got a growling for not going to hospital the night before when she had a temperature.

She was healthy enough that they still gave her chemo on the Wednesday and it went ok. Back on Friday to get the chemo bottle detached and all good. Come Monday though, she was back to shaking like an earthquake with shivers and the loudest clattering teeth I’ve ever seen. Seriously man, I thought she was going to snap a couple of teeth, it was that bad. Was like those chomping chattery teeth toys but with a whole head and body attached.

Spoke to our oncologist who I’m not allowed to call a gnome even though he looks like one and he told us to attend Mater Private Emergency. A $400 privilege, most of which we got back from Medicare because Marjana’s reached the yearly threshold. There’s a positive right. Spend untold on health so you get reimbursed more when you spend even more. Being sick ain’t cheap. Fact.

We got to meet a hot young nurse and there in stops the compliments for her. She was a real ruthless impolite bitch neither of us wish to deal with ever again. Her and her fake eyebrows all but scraped the remains of my snorer’s brains out during a Covid swab. Apart from her though, all other medical staff were very nice and professional… almost like real life doctors and nurses and not pretty little girls pretending to be one.

I worked that Monday and didn’t get home from hospital until about 2.30am so was a little rooted for work Tuesday. I really am blessed that my bosses are good cunts and have had our back from day one. Seriously man, it makes so much difference.

They found a room for my cook in the ward and done so many tests, it reminded me of the French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll… but they couldn’t find out what was fucking her up so much.

The first wife missed Dilan’s awards presentation night but I did manage to break her out Friday morning so she could attend the final assembly and morning tea. She loved it and was so happy to make it.

Then home to do fuck all but lay prone until I returned her to hospital before they sent a posse out a huntin’. By this stage she was buggered anyway and was definitely not up to housework level of energy levels.

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She was released from custody the following morning and by midmorning was back home doing nothing. We managed a day trip to the Gold Coast to see if our son and his new mullet were still alive at schoolies. Thanks to our raggedy ol’ hag mate, he even had a bed to sleep in and a shower to do more than just clean.

Sunday night, the ol’ girl was back to her shaking like one of my favourite Elvis songs, Burning Love. 

The following morning though, she was ok. Average but ok enough to attend a lunch with about 20 workmates who came to hang out and drink piss with her. Ok, maybe she wasn’t healthy enough to drink piss but I was, so I took one for the team and fitted in the best I could with some of Marjana’s good mates from Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre (BWCC). I had written pissheads but she made me change it.

It was an awesome little afternoon for the first wife and her mates. She was happy as fuck, on a high and really enjoyed herself… until we got home when she laid down just in time for Burning Love lyrics to play out in real life, except the temperature reason wasn’t from being in love.

After another touching base check with our oncologist who I’m not allowed to call a gnome even though he looks like one, we decided to try and survive until Wednesday’s Chernobyl Day. It was a struggle with Marjana shaking like an epileptic from a continual temperatures which we nullified somewhat with panadol every few  hours.

The first wife walked into chemo very much unlike a cool sounding crouching tiger. But man, did she nail the crouched over snail speed shuffling spastic type of walk..

The Queen and her walking stick would smash my first wife in a walking race right now. Actually, the Queen without her walking stick would clean her up too. Hmmm, you know what? Marjana would even struggle in a race against just the Queen’s walking stick.

You see, she gets blood tests done the day before every chemo session  and there’s something in the white cells of blood called neutrophils. I probably didn’t quite get that right but in normal, or at least healthy people is around 2 mcL. With cancer patients they give chemo when it’s as low as half that which caused a bit of concern for our nurse sheilas as my first wife’s was a quarter of that at .24 mcL, I think. That’s the shit that fights infections. So the long and the short of it was, no chemo for wifey and once they filled her up with hop-less fluids she got a free ride back to hospital in an ambulance.

One of our awesome chemo nurses who I like too much to give one of my nicknames told me the fever shaking thing Marjana’s been getting every four hours is called rigor, so that might save my word count instead of talking about Elvis songs or shattering teeth. I dig Elvis though so fuck the word count.

Another of our lovely chemo nurses and they really are lovely at Redland’s Mater Cancer Care Centre, reckons Marjana has febrile neutropenia, which is the fever during a period of neutropenia. I’m sure you’ll all die happier knowing that too aye.

Couple of quotes of the Day for good measure…

Nurse: Your temperature is 39.4*

Marjana: Do I still have a temperature?

Me holding Marjana’s hand: Yeah of course you do. Your hand was burning mine it was so hot.

Marjana: That’s because I had my hands on the wheat bag and I was hot.

Me: Oooh, calling yourself hot now aye.

Urine samples are very routine for the mother of my children nowadays…

Me (telling nurse): You might wanna wear gloves for this one as she pissed all over the piss cup.

Nurse: Yes, I overheard her telling you. It is a little bit hard trying to keep your hand still when shaking with fever though.

What you’ve just read was a draft up until a few weeks ago now. If I posted it by itself, it would be outdated. Rather than deleting the whole thing or editing it heaps as that takes fucking ages, I’ll just add the rest now. It’s almost like a two for one which is cool when talking about drinking piss but this ain’t that sorry.

Well anyway, the last few weeks have mostly been a bit of a cunt to be honest. Before we start that catch up though, check out this short clip of Dane Coles calling ol mate a mouthy cunt. A deserved win for Ireland, same with the Frogs and the Boks a few weeks earlier, fuck it. Congrats enemies on your deserved wins.

I think those that know me, or even those that subscribe to these blogs could accede to the fact I like telling stories and on occasion have been known to call a spade a spade.  This probably ain’t the appropriate forum for me to write a whinge about my first wife’s last hospital stay because we did make a complaint and you cunts don’t want to read about sad whinging shit anyway. But I will say it really fucked up my first wife big time and I don’t like that very much at all.

On top of that, a week of long visits cost fucking heaps when paying hospital parking in the city. Lucky we’ve got so many good bastards on our side that’ve donated to help with this sort of shit. It is kinda sad though that people who are either sick or visiting someone sick are charged so much for the privilege of parking within walking distance.

Almost, but not entirely unrelated, we still love our surgeon Peter Yuide. He’s still a good cunt.

Keeping the above in perspective though, as much as that hospital stay was a little bit shit, if my girl didn’t actually have cancer she wouldn’t even need to go to hospital. We don’t like cancer very much at all! In fact, it’s even heaps worse than some recent All Black performances.

Might throw in a little quote of the day here…

Me to a doctor mate of mine: It must sound like we’re whinging about first world problems.

Doctor mate: But we do live in the first world so fair enough.

Going back to that windows analogy briefly, since starting this particular blog, my first wife’s window of health has pretty much remained closed since that hospital visit. Not trying to sound like a whinging cunt but in all honesty she hasn’t been feeling very flash lately.

She’s nearly always fatigued. So much so that some days she needs to sit down for a rest immediately after standing up.

She’s nearly always in pain. That causes tears of pain and cries of agony.

Sometimes those tears aren’t even from the physical pain as are emotional tears of frustration and dire contempt at what the future holds… and doesn’t hold. Not all the tears are even from her. If I thought paying $500 for a week’s hospital parking was painful, that pales in comparison to watching one’s first wife or mother suffer.

She ain’t exactly blind (well that, along with deafness is actually quite debatable) and still has nerve sensors so can blatantly see and feel how it’s fucking her up. I know it hurts her to experience it in the first person her health deteriorating. So much so, that for some reason she continually apologises to me for having to witness it myself. As much as it’s fucked for me, that’s miniscule in comparison her dealing with it.

Cheers to a few of Marjana’s workmates, there’s been continual visits of love, gifts and champas on a new balcony setting by Val have been had and appreciated muchly. Balcony Settings by Val sounds flash as, actually.

Funny how a shitty sleep can affect ya though aye. We all had a fucked night’s sleep Thursday night ‘cos my bathroom space hogger was in heaps of pain. We both woke up feeling pretty fucked and the world had that weird twilight zone atmosphere where it felt half a degree off centre. I drove to the supermarket where for the first time in the history of the world, there were no carparks at this shopping centre. Drove around slow as and swerve to avoid being crashed into as three separate cars almost reversed into me. Done a few more carpark hunting laps and after about five minutes, still no parking. Drove around the block and find one of those street carparks where ya have to reverse into angled parking. As I’m reversing into it some cunt runs across the road using my half parked in carpark as his footpath entrance and I almost ran him over. Then tried to do a quick grocery shop but failed in the quickness part because Queensland had opened up to interstate travellers and every single one of them decided to visit my grocery store. Finally, while driving home some sheila so old she probably partied with Jesus put her blinker on to turn left into the street in front. Thing is she wasn’t turning into that street and was doing a reversed angle park like I did earlier but had gone too far forward. She too would’ve reversed into me if I wasn’t all paranoid already after the previous incidents. I quickly reversed out of her way but of course this is the Twilight Zone thing remember and some other cunt was crossing the road just behind me and I almost ran him over too. Survived without killing anyone and made it home where I spent the next few hours dropping shit and knocking shit over. I mean, in the end, no cunt died or was even injured but some days just aren’t meant to be. I hate those days.

Enough negative shit though and I should apologise as we ain’t dead yet and life could be way worse, so on a positive…

Anyone who even remotely knows my first wife would be aware she’s a proud Catholic, as are her family and almost 90% of Croatians. She must’ve quite liked me. My first wife I mean, as in January 1998 she married me and I wasn’t even a Catholic, or christened any other faith for that matter… apart from just trying to be a good cunt. I did say trying.

So over the last few months, I did a Right of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) course that Marjana also attended with me. I think, only to make sure I didn’t wag.

But a couple Sunday’s ago in what some may consider Marjana’s greatest ever living achievement, I was baptised a real life Catholic. It was an awesome occasion. The event itself was great, as was the fact that both our boys were present, Marjana’s family, including her Mama watched the livestream from Croatia, the company of our Croatian Connection including my Kum, Vjeko. Plus we had a decent feed, drank some piss and basically had a great day celebrating the occasion. For me though and without a doubt the highlight was the absolute joy it brought my first wife. We met in January 1996 so it may have taken her a while (and quite possibly a little bout of cancer) to get me across the line but here’s a ‘Fuck Yeah’ for my first wife’s belief and yeah, maybe her persistence too.

Quote of the day:

Me talking to my ol’ man on the phone: Oh yeah, I got Christened a few days ago.

Dad: What?

Me: I got Christened. You know, Baptised. Like Catholics do.

Dad: Aye…? What? Why’d ya go and do that. Fucken hell. You’re probably the first Winslow ever.

Me: Haha, well considering you never passed the fucken ball in rugby, I think I may have also been the first Winslow to ever pass a rugby ball to a team mate too. Plus, I think I’m also the first Winslow to ever become a cop. Dilan graduated high school last week and Kodi a few years ago too so surely, they gotta be up there with first for Winslows too aye. We’re like trailblazers us fellas aye. You’re still the first Winslow to ever be stabbed in the guts by his Chinese Mrs, taken to hospital where your ex said good job and if she’d had the guts she would’ve shot ya years ago haha. You got me fucked on that one, Dad.

And another one for good measure.

Marjana is trying different painkillers including Cannabidiol (CBD oil). She doesn’t like it much and her face cringes at the taste of it so…

Me: They should make an olive oil tasting one for wogs like you aye.

Well peeps, that about does it for this instalment and saying I struggled a little getting this one out there is an understatement. But quite a few have been asking when this blog was coming, if everything is ok etc, and I’m learning quick smart that these updates are kinda important for some of y’all. They certainly are for my favourite Catholic and I.

Thank you for subscribing to this blog, for the generosity of those who still giving us shit and for having us in your thoughts. We don’t like drama much but we do like good cunts just like y’all.