Appears we had a bit of rain over the last few days.
As so many have said, the sky was crying all our tears for Marjana. Going by the amount of rain drops, seems to me that the first wife was rather well liked and a whole heap of people had a very sad weekend. I do apologise on my first wife’s behalf ’cause we much prefer being happy than being sad cunts.
Because of all the rain though Redland City Council won’t dig graves this week as apparently one already collapsed so that put her funeral off until next week.
We got us a couple priest we’re really close to that the my first wife was hoping to have run her funeral. One is our now retired local parish priest Father Ashley and the other is our Iona College Rector who helped us through so much, including helping guide Dilan into being a good human being. Working around their availability pushed the funeral back a little longer but it’s all good.
Father Michael will be leading Marjana’s service which will be followed by a burial at Cleveland Cemetery.
After that we gunna have us an after-match function at our local rugby club, Redlands Rugby Union Club, fondly known as Muddies. Most of y’all know that place as it’s where Marjana had her 50th last year.
Funeral details are:
Where: Star of the Sea Parish, 53 Passage St, Cleveland, QLD 4163
When: Thursday 10th March, 2022
Time: 11am
It will be livestreamed and available to watch for six months if anyone’s bored of Netflix.
So, as much as my squirrel sheila and I (plus all you fellas reading this) have deterred, pushed back and kept the inevitable at bay, it seems we finally arrived at that point of no return. Cant go back, but we can go forward.
As much as I imagine I’m gunna be a bit of a sad cunt on the day, I reckon celebrating an angel like this is a good thing.
Oi, where’s Mum ya cunt?Oh man, really?Not pissing on your clothes and some cuddles might help ya, Dad.
I’m privileged to announce that this morning, Marjana had one of her most desired wishes come true.
Unfortunately, it was her wish that she die before me.
On a positive note, my first wife is now at peace and that gives me and our boys peace, as I’m sure it does y’all.
She died peacefully in her sleep next to me.
Tomorrow would’ve been her 51st birthday.
On behalf of my first wife, Kodi, Dilan and I, we thank you for every single piece of love, support and care received since this cunt of a battle began.
I was going to finish these Cancer Chronicles with The end, but somehow think it’s not… the end, I mean.
Funeral details to come soon.
May the healing begin.
Počivaj u miru ljubavi moja
Winslow Family (left to right): Brendon, Bella, Kodi, Marjana, Dilan – absent is Pudding (probably pissing inside somewhere) and Bird (jailed in a cage)
I write this sitting next to my first wife as her life clock winds down during these final stages.
I’ve battled with myself whether I should throw this extra blog out or not as thought I was only gunna have to write one more. But tomorrow is two weeks into hospice life and by all your messages of love, I think we actually owe y’all an update.
A powerful photo 13 Feb 2020
Straight up, let’s try start on a positive; my first wife might be feeling a little bit shit right now but she wasn’t eaten by a shark like that poor cunt down Sydney the other day.
How devastating life can be when it’s taken so ruthlessly in an instant like that, yet still as natural a death as can be modelled by the Mother Nature approach. At least with our slow release version of a natural death, unlike ol’ mate down Sydney, we’ve had so much more time together since we found out we had a ‘use before’ date. To put it plainly, we’ve had time to say our goodbyes… fuck it.
I’ve already written about that heaps so it must sound repetitive but that’s because we’re continually appreciative of it. Maybe we have to be to even deal with this shit. I dunno, man.
Having said that, I’d like to think we’d also be appreciative should we have had to face an instant death because it would’ve been less painful in a way. Instant or a slow wind down? Our preferred option would be no fucking death at all.
It might sound like I’m harping on about this a bit and maybe so but when I think about it, it’s probably a coping mechanism to deal with the cards we’ve been dealt. On that note, if we got dealt these cards in the cowboy days I would’ve called the dealer a cheat and shot the cunt… woulda been in a saloon too, for sure. A real cool one.
So, to put our current situation into perspective, apart from those early hospital blogs when she was operated on, this is the only one Marjana hasn’t proof read before publishing. As far as first wives go, she really was a great lil’ proof reader though. I know if my words make her laugh when they’re mostly taking the piss out of her and our cunty cancer scene, then they’re at a suitable level for y’all commoners who aren’t my life choice.
Problem right now though is that she’s pretty fucked up and her proof reading days are history like that cheating cowboy I woulda shot.
Ok, maybe I should’ve trimmed her fingernails before this pic
Tell ya what though, she’s one tough little squirrel, man! There’s no way she should still be here today sucking out my tears like Dracular does blood and giving me writing material.
That toughness though is possibly even trumped by her niceness. The staff here at our hospice don’t know of these blogs but even they kinda get she’s special. But a nice special, not a spastic kinda special like me. Doctors and nurses come into our room and no matter how fucked up she is with pain or out of it from painkillers, so far she’s still managed to give them her smile with her angelic eyes and respond to the how are you question with a soft slurred ‘I’m good thanks,’ even though she is very far from good.
Here’s another positive (see we live in a good world, man), we’re now 20 days into February and I’m still waking up next to my little Kiwi rugby player huntress. Yeah, different beds and mine’s some funky chair bed thing but I’m also no longer her chef slave cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
Life ain’t particularly awesome right now but it’s ok, considering.
Also, not only does she hoard like a squirrel but she’s now eating and drinking like one. No, not like little nibbling bites or filling up her mouth with heaps of nuts ya clowns, I’m talking about the amount she eats. Surviving on few pieces of fruit, some ice cream and a little water, Powerade and chamomile tea. It’s nowhere near enough but when ya body’s in shut down mode it’s kinda hard to counter that.
My body seems to be very much not in shut down mode as I’m all for lookin’ after the world and shit and am pretty sure that food wastage is bad for the environment. So two feeds, three times a day, possibly also with a little contraband plonk and beer, is my way of helping the world counter global warming. You are very welcome.
No surprise here but apart from an initial attempt upon arrival, the ying to my yang hasn’t got out of bed since we arrived. That also puts things into perspective a bit.
Her right leg was getting all funky when we were still at home as had to drag it when walking. A couple days after arriving at hospice she lost use of it altogether and as of a few days ago has now also lost use of her right arm and hand. Now that’s what I call a little bit shit but taking that positive angle, she doesn’t seem to realise that she’s even lost use of it. Plus she’s right handed so I haven’t been clipped around the ears for a while.
I had her family and friends back in The Old Country send voice recordings of nice memories they shared together and it appears she even had a life before she met me. Go figure that aye. It’s so heart warming to see her smile as she too recalls those good memories when listening. It’s kinda like an olden days version of taking selfies but analog… in a digital sorta way.
Heaps of you, our cult followers are always checking up on me and that’s all cool and appreciated and shit but it’s not lost on me or our boys that Marjana is by far the greatest victim in this travesty. Yeah our lives, like yours, will change for sure but fuck man, nowhere near as much as hers. We’ve had some shit times (more good ones though) and we gunna be copping some more pretty soon too but for now, we’re doing alright.
These blogs are almost confessional in a way but wouldn’t be like that if I fluffed things over so… I gotta admit, sitting beside your dying wife’s bed witnessing life drain out of her by the breath, is an absolute cunt of a thing, man. It’s a little bit shit and I don’t like it very much but there is no place in the world I’d rather be right now.
I’d much prefer fun filled days together with cold beers, fine food and orgasms but when it’s ya most treasured human being, even struggling moments are appreciated. Like when the ol’ girl does her sneaky little look me in the eye melting smile trick. Life could be worse. Yeah man, of course it could be better but it could still be worse.
She’s so cute too aye. She’ll be crashed out big time and there’s a very light knock on the door from some room service sheila. It’s not enough to wake her up but her sleep lightens enough for her to respond ‘Come in,’ with a sweet slurred whisper.
Over these last couple weeks I’ve probably done a bit of soul searching with emotions running like clothes, food and junk in Dilan’s bedroom… all over the place. Heaps of emotions, including feelings of guilt ’cause here I am still enjoying some moments of pleasure when my greatest love can’t. I’m happy to call myself a dumb cunt but I’m also aware of the grieving process and know that’s all part of this gig, even though we aren’t quite at the finish line yet.
I even tried to make my brain think the person near death beside me is as healthy as she was before… oh hang on… yeah… nah, I think that was the plonk talking actually.
What wasn’t the plonk talking though and is still very much a cunt of a chore is having to get up off my chair bed thing to watch the first wife up close very intently to see if she’s still breathing. So far so good but it ain’t really heaps of fun.
I’ve been here with her pretty much 24/7 and the boys come every day with my ol’ lady. The first day they came was emotionally draining as fuck for ’em both. They sat with their ol’ lady taking in and trying to accept the reality as any 17 and 22-year-olds starting out in life would, could, hope to. They then lay down and fell into a deep motionless coma for couple hours and exactly the same happened the following day.
zzz zzz zzz
In case any of y’all are wondering, I have read and/or played every single message you’ve sent to my first wife, some more than once but rest assured she does get ’em. If you’re one of her chick mates and you get a reply from her phone saying you should root ya man more or cook him a feed or something, you probably should do it so you don’t go against ya mate’s wishes aye.
Our hospice holiday might not be quality time but it’s still time together even if we are running on fumes in an empty tank. She’s still got the ability to make me happy to aye. For example, she’s obviously drugged and confused as fuck from painkillers but when I helped the nurses give her a bed bath and she realised it was me holding her close enough to whisper, she gives me her purest smile and does Bella’s trick whenever my head gets close to hers, and starts kissing it. But not like Bella’s dog licking kisses. Nah, these are more like a woodpecker doing the woodpecker thing on a tree. A machine gun of kisses, almost.
Your quote of the day ain’t really a funny one but we like it.
First husband: I love you.
First wife: I love you.
Finally, I can honestly say that since we’ve been here in hospice our mutual friend has received the most compassionate gentle care in as happy an environment as potentially possible. She gets hand, feet and face massages and although they’re with my rough hands and not that of a hot beauty therapist sheila, surely, that’s gotta give us all a little peace of mind so on that note, peace out y’all.
Bit of a quick turnaround compared to some previous blogs but things have changed a bit around here since #56.
You know what’s a good thing about a hospice? It’s quicker to write than hospital.
Hospice has been on the cards for a while now and although my first wife said she was keen on that option rather than staying home till the end, she didn’t exactly want to hurry it up. Wanted to keep some normality in our lives I think, like still being at home and listening to me say cunt a lot while I drink piss.
There’s heaps of obvious positives about being at home but there’s also some negatives as well. The main couple that spring to mind are there’s always noise and distractions like Pudding pissing, shitting or spewing on my clothes and side of the bed, as well as family living noises that are both comforting, but now more so annoying when it’s peace, quiet and calm she seeks.
Fuck man, even the pressure caused by airflow from doing the sign of the cross on her can upset her, that’s how sensitive she’s become to pain.
Pudding looking over her Mama knowing something ain’t right
But there’s also pros and cons about hospice too. She can still hear me say cunt, for one but secondly they got a dedicated team of carers who aren’t just some dude letting down his Westy natives with his unskilled and inexperienced ability in coordinating and supplying drugs to his first wife. Admittedly these are legit drugs for pain and not some backyard crack whore scene.
Yeah, we got a tree in our backyard for pissing competitions with some mates but we’re still pretty much a crack whore free zone to be honest. For the record, I’m the Pee Tree reigning champion.
Back to the story though. Some days and night’s we’d get through not too bad with pain control from various forms of painkillers but not always. My little Dalmatinka’s body and her pain levels change daily so it’s a battle combating the grief of constipation caused by painkillers versus the pain they prevent.
After another less than average night’s sleep, my first wife woke up yesterday to tell me she thinks it’s time to go to hospice.
By far the main con about hospice though, is that it’s usually a one way street. So watching her being taken away in an ambulance wasn’t exactly one of life’s greatest pleasures for either of us, but especially her.
The problem with hospice right now though is that there’s too many people dying so there’s no room for her. That kinda sucked but there’s a work around which we’re happy with after living it for a day. The palliative care team rent rooms from both Redland’s Public Hospital and Mater Private Redlands. We were gifted a very large private room at Mater Private and as I write this my little squirrel sheila is finally getting some deep (mostly) uninterrupted sleep.
I think everyone including moja mala Hrvatska zena, myself and medical staff all agree being here is the better option, as I can concentrate on being her first husband and not trying to play doctors and nurses… although, I gotta admit it ain’t as much fun as I thought it’d be in my teenage years. Tricked me, I’m thinkin’.
So yeah, we’re now at the hospice scene and although it’s only been a day, we can’t speak highly enough of Marjana’s treatment or the medical staff. They’ve been absolutely brilliant. I think it helped that one of our awesome oncologist nurses was also there in the ward and thinkin’ she may have let slip that we’re not mongrels, or at least the first wife ain’t.
I was even gunna try jump in on one of the first wife’s sponge baths under a two for one deal until I saw her main nurse was some big muscly as dude. Nice as dude too.
Kinda looks a bit merlo-ish don’t it
I’ve been reading all ya messages sent to my first wife and she loves ’em and very much appreciates the love.
We also both love the fact people seem to quite like us and I guess, how we come across in these blogs. That’s all cool and shit but just don’t want y’all thinking our lives have always been filled with trauma and grief from fucked things like cancer, or even that our life together has been plain sailing without dramas and shit.
For sure, me and the first wife have had a great life together and considering everything, we still do right now. But we’ve had our fair share of rough times even back before my former elitist beauty therapist put a spell on me with her little battering of her eyelids trick… and beer, wine, Croatian cured meats and a rope to lure me into entwining our lives.
No surprise here really but the same goes for these married years due to me stumbling – sometimes from Jagermeister but also because she was always wrong and I was always right and she was deaf and I wasn’t and she was blind and I wasn’t and she snored and I didn’t and she did annoying things like leaving the vacuum cleaner as a trip hazard and I didn’t. I think I got the fault blame around the right way but maybe not (wifey laughed most at this paragraph).
It hasn’t taken me until these final hard yards to understand this but I do now see it in 4K compared to hearing it through AM radio. Long term marriages, de facto and partnership relationships are a team game and by surviving not only the good times but also the bad together is important as fuck. There’s no place on earth I’d rather be right now than where I currently am, next to her as she whispers her squirrel snores to me. I know she’d be sitting in the same chair I’m in, if we swapped health places.
But we ain’t done just yet though.
This blog wasn’t gunna have a quote of the day until, when reading it to her, I got to the last couple of paragraphs and she grabbed my hand, looked up at me and said “Don’t cry ljubavi. I’m not dead yet.”
I guess what I was trying to say in this long winded way is that Marjana is now in a hospice.
Trying times, man. The life we’re livin’ right now, I mean.
These blogs are getting harder and harder to write. I need to be in a decent headspace to put pen to paper with as positive a spin possible. We’re well aware y’all sharing this cunty cancer scene with us and know it affects you too.
But it can be difficult trying to be a bit of a funny cunt sometimes.
I know these blogs tend to bring out a rainbow of emotions in not only you, the reader, but also me, the writer. Some have taken hours to write, some days and some weeks and even months, but fuck man, they can be a hard write.
Thank you Liz for bringing a smile to her face
But let’s get down to it.
Things have changed a fair bit around here lately.
Things like, deciding no more Chernobyl sessions. We’re now finished with chemo for good.
That there was a hard decision to make because stopping chemo ultimately allows the inevitable to happen. The disgusting irony of that though, is that the inevitable is gunna happen anyway but this way it allows Marjana a little more enjoyment, rather than suffering.
Besides, the chemo wasn’t doing shit anyway except making her massively sick. It wasn’t killing cancer which if I understand correctly, is what it’s supposed to do.
Blessed are we to be given that privilege of choice though.
That decision did help in giving us your quote of the day though.
Me: Just to clarify mate, it’s just the chemo we’re stopping as I’d still like to come every couple weeks to chill here and eat all your free food, if ya don’t mind.
Father Michael came for a much appreciated Anointing of the Sick visit
In what I think is a positive, my ol’ lady (Mum) is now here and I forgot how much she loves her plonk. Mind you, so do I, so can’t really take the piss out of her for that.
She’s doing pretty well earning her $6.00 bottles of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc but it must be very thirsty work by the looks. Oh, and here’s another positive… she quite liked a $3.50 Semillon Sav she came across so looks like I’m gunna save a little coin.
The kitchen’s always clean now and not once yet has she farted in my face, wiped my face with a dirty dishcloth or spat on her finger to clean my face, so feeling a little spoilt.
She was pretty lucky to be granted a compassionate exemption to quarantine next door at our good mates Marty and Sam’s self contained unit. Plus that was cut short to only four days after Queensland’s borders opened up. I’ve actually become very unfit since she’s been in our house and not next door as I no longer have to run back and forwards delivering her plonk, like a personalised Uber Drinks service.
Mum’s a half decent clothes folder and putter awayer too
My first wife ain’t going too flash of late. In fact she’s a little bit fucked up unfortunately.
Pain is continual and unless managed properly with painkillers it’s hardcore pain. It’s an absolute cunt of a thing to witness her suffering in agony when we don’t quite get the timing or dosage right because it’s always changing.
I’ve dealt with heaps of fucked up shit in my job as a cop but all pale in comparison to watching her suffer. As much as it sucks for me, I can’t even imagine how it must be for her living it, feeling the physical agony along with the emotional agony we feel. I don’t like that part of our journey very much at all.
Slightly out of focus but clearly shows some of her tablets are the size of a 600ml water bottle
I started writing this somehow celebrating the fact today (31 January) was our 24th wedding anniversary and we got to wake up next to each other for it. It’s the small things in life, just like that and they become even more significant in times like these.
As a nickname over the years, I called my first wife ‘moja mala Hrvatska cura’ which roughly translates to ‘my little Croatian girl’, later changing cura to žena‘, meaning woman/wife. Because she now struggles to eat and drink a decent amount, not surprisingly she’s lost heaps of weight. She really is moja mala Hrvatska žena, now.
She might be little but she fights like someone who’s got family and friends she cares about and continues to do so by the minute.
We pray a rosary every morning with her family back in Croatia and fuck man, do I feel for them seeing her and not being in a position to help, cuddle or even just be with her in the flesh.
Still, technology is great and a few years ago we couldn’t even do video chats like Star Trek showed us heaps of years ago. But now look at us almost doing a Maxwell Smart talking shoe trick. We really are blessed.
When your falling tears make a Micky Mouse design on your sheets
Marjana has about a billion messages to read and either hasn’t read your messages or been able to reply. Not that she doesn’t want to of course, but just can’t right now (have since read and responded on her behalf).
Obviously, that means heaps of y’all contacting me and that’s all cool and shit including those wanting to visit. Believe me, we get why people want to come visit but please don’t be offended when I say no, like I have to a heap of y’all already. Visits fuck her up big time and as much as it pains to say it, they are a thing of the past.
Even if she’s asleep, she’s still listening. That’s a wife thing though, I reckon. Always watching and listening, all in an effort to remember some random time and date when a husband fucks up so as to knowingly and very confidently bring it up decades later.
I reckon I’m probably better at pissing when standing up than most sheilas are… possibly not as accurate but that specialist skill-set is nothing compared to that time and date stamp y’all have locked away. Evil as fuck, but very much a super power and I dunno how y’all do that shit but should probably stop it, I reckon. Its like witchcraft.
But when people have visited, she’s sucked dry of any energy she had and right now she ain’t got any to spare. Sorry man, but it is what it is.
Sorry, what’s that you’re asking about? What’s Pudding been up to? Pudding’s still very much a cunt.
Of course the spew was on my side of the bed
No mention of All Blacks this time around but I am gunna touch on Ash Barty. What a humble human being and in a world of show ponies and egos, how refreshing is it to see an athlete of her calibre displaying such humbleness and grace in pretty much everything she does, including winning. I’d happily shout you a beer any day, young lady.
Finally, the title of this blog boasts the fact we’ve now been married 24 years, with a couple of warm up years before that. Twenty six years is half my life and more than half the first wife’s. Not too bad considering.
Some of you fellas are aware I’ve been working on a children’s book of late. I actually wrote it about 20 years ago and in all honesty, it’s probably not my greatest work. But it is my most important work as is a dedication book to my little squirrel sheila. It touches on a very small part of our life together two years after we met and shows that even way back in the olden days, people were good to us.
Cover page of Ana and Endo Adventures
It’s a nice story in a fairy tale format and thanks to a mate’s help, I’ve managed to print 100 copies in a limited edition collector’s edition for close family and friends. I may have even drawn names out of a hat when it came to the likes of Marjana’s workmates as there’s too many beautiful people to gift all.
I very quickly found out that 100 copies is nowhere near enough to appease even the followers of these Cancer Chronicle blogs but that first 100 are now printed and delivered and Marjana got to see the book in print. That’s important for us.
I’ve worked out how to blog of course, but if anyone’s clued up in how to morph this book into an ebook or have publishing contacts who may be interested, I’d love to hear from ya.
I’ll try link it to my blog later under Children’s Stories but don’t want to fuck it up because I worked with a brilliant illustrator called Alex Bennett. His artwork kinda stole the book with the quality of it, and I need to do his work justice as well.
Have I mentioned that this particular kids story doesn’t say cunt even once…
Dilan showing his Nona the remarkable resemblance between real life her and book character her
I’d like to think I’ve always been pretty straight up in these blogs even if they’re sometimes sad, like I’m ending this one on. Our life’s changed heaps since this journey began but we’re still travelling those same roads but they’re getting rough like goat tracks.
This clip was her proof reading the last blog a couple weeks ago
Woodstock's blog 