Menagerie

I had to shoot back home to New Zealand recently for some sad times.

While at the airport waiting for my return flight back to Aussie, I checked my CCTV and saw Dilan digging a garden.

I asked what he was up to and he said something about a fruit garden or some shit.

When I got home, I tapped into my finely tuned, fading eyes and ears and concluded that a fruit garden was a pair of ducks.

I’m like, “What the fuck, man?”.

Dilan’s like, “They’re Indian Running Ducks, or one is anyway. Crystal and Shaniqua. Cool aye.”

“No, not even a little bit cool, man.”

Knowing we don’t really have a duck pen or pond, or whatever it is that ducks live in, I shake my head in wonder.

Crystal and Shaniqua
A proud dad

Around the same time we got our first duck egg, we also took in Harry the Huntsman. He roamed our house and grounds freely, taking down cockroaches, mice, rats, and the odd weak wallaby. Talk about feeling safe, man.

I buggered off on a cool little overseas trip and was again ambushed upon return.

Fuck me, I now had a chicken in my backyard.

I’m like, “Nah seriously Dilan, ya cunt! What the fuck, man? This ain’t even a little bit cool.”

“Hey, nah Dad, don’t be like that. Bad Betty’s cool and she’ll be laying eggs soon.”

A few days later Bad Betty had Skanky Sally join her.

I go to work and whinge to my mate.

That didn’t do shit, because I woke up the following morning and glimpsed what I initially thought was a goat on my patio.

Lucky I took another look though, because I then realised it wasn’t a goat at all. It was two goats!

Billy and Tyrone

Two goats pissing and shitting all over my patio area, looking up at me with cute as ‘come cuddle me eyes’.

Dilan had already left for work and I’m about to myself but I’ve got goats bleating, ducks quacking and chickens bock-fucken-bocking.

Ol’ Bad Betty had escaped her piss-weak prison and was out front showing me chickens can cross the road, no matter what the answer to the age old joke.

So I hunt chook for a bit and throw her back into the backyard, where she doesn’t yet know she even belongs.

Four of the bastards

I’ve also got our dog Bella that now wants in on the action. But she doesn’t know if she wants to eat them, protect them, shepherd them or what, but she’s whining and running around like a spastic.

And lets not forget the first of them all, our cat Pudding. Her scorning look of absolute disgust, as she looks on, following the recent farm annexation.

Pudding trying to prove to me that age isn’t a barrier to being flexible

On a positive though, now that the trauma of the goat invasion has somewhat subsided, one of the ducks has started laying eggs again.

Ouch

Yesterday I thought one of our chooks was being raped but apparently she gave birth to her first ever egg.

Dilan, full of pride, watched on from his room.

Bella loves eggs but prefers meat, including poultry

As for the goats, I’m pretty sure, I won’t be getting any eggs from them. The fact that they’re both males – without nuts has something to do with it.

So without even goats milk to make cheese, they’re kind of useless, except for maybe cooking or cuddling.

I actually started this blog hoping someone would want the goats, maybe on a loan basis, or buy back situation, but I’m going to change the theme a little.

Shall I let Dilan keep the animals, does somebody else want them, or shall we eat them for Christmas?

I’ll try work out how y’all can vote for a few options at the end.

Oh, and they’re some sort of midget goats by the way. You know, like the equivalent of our human dwarfs or midgets… and, like some of those cunts, these goats also try to root each other.

Now there’s a sales pitch if ever ya heard one right aye. Miniature gay goat porn. Bit of a niche there, I’m thinking.

Or maybe you’re a midget and love riding horses but always need a leg up. No longer a problem. You can own your own goat. Man’s new best friend.

In hindsight, maybe I would’ve been better off letting Dilan get a dog. For the record though, I did not say yes to a menagerie, ark, zoo etc.

I now have a backyard that, should I wish to access, I have to study architecture and train as a ninja warrior to get through the obstacle course Dilan created in an ad-hoc solution to animal containment.

I’m not sure Dilan realised, that none of these animals, are actually rocks that do not move.

Maybe a pet rock next time, Dilan

Their current living arrangement is a cross between a shanty town shack in South East Asia and bivouac style camping.

There may come a day when I build a mountainous Himalayas themed backyard to accommodate these animals but until then, anyone interested in them is asked to sing out very loud, or even whisper. Fuck it, just a hint will suffice.

The goats are like petting zoo level of friendly, cuddly and far too cute and cheeky for me to want to spend heaps of time with.

Not sure why I feel so inclined but I am purchasing a decent chook pen. If I don’t use it for the chooks and ducks, I might move Dilan into it.

They say a Mum, can’t really be replaced.

Unless it’s with two ducks.

And two chickens.

And two goats.

And a huntsman spider.

Nah, she can’t be replaced but I do wonder what Marjana would’ve said.

I guess it’s all part of turning the page.

#56 The first wife of 24 years

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.

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.

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.

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

#50 Merry Christmas

Some of y’all have asked if I can change the words to my last post as didn’t very much like what was written. You fellas should try writing this shit, man.

So I can’t rewrite it unfortunatley but I can write another one so we can all smile fondly and feel good like one does following an All Black win (struggling a little to remember that feeling actually).

Christmas 2021

My first wife is here to celebrate Christmas so ‘fuck yeah’.

Our kids are at home and she’s happy with that… maybe give it a few hours.

Got heaps of food and piss.

Got as many family coming to ours to celebrate too.

Plus, at Christmas Eve Mass last night Father Ashley mentioned Marjana in his prayers and fuck man, that shit must work instantly because you should’ve seen her face light up with pure love, pride and appreciation.

In all honesty, it could very well be my favourite moment of the whole year.

Father Ashley and my first wife

Plus dear lil wifey got some pull as couple of our renegade outlaw Winslow cuzzies even stepped into church in support of her.

Thank you so much for all the love, gifts, visits and messages. We’re blessed as fuck.

Merry Christmas from ours to yours.

Just re reading this and noted I missed a word so will fix that. Cunt.

#44 Milestone reached

Milestones are nice aye. Well at least the good ones are.

But even fucked ones can be worth celebrating. You know, like being diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer but still being alive after one full cycle around the sun.

A whole year later and she ain’t even a little bit dead.

Fuck yeah!

Obviously it hasn’t all been what we’d call a shit hot time though. Marjana’s changed heaps but the key point being she’s still alive to actually change.

There’s been some extreme hairstyle makeovers, heaps of spews and gallons of diarrhoea to compliment the constipation along the way and fuck man, those snorts she now makes when she laughs would shame a wild boar.

This cancer life we now live has changed us all as none of us are the same people we were a year ago. Fact!

Although my first wife is still kinda growly (it’s a wife thing I believe), I have to admit she doesn’t sweat the small stuff like our pre cancer days. It’s really puts things into perspective and that’s actually a positive.

life hack #101 – when ya cat spews up a feed let ya dog eat the spew – two feeds for the price of one

But as I sit here typing away my first wife is laying beside me in pain. She’s got her chemo bottle attached and is crying in agony from stomach cramps thanks to chemo.

This particular blog has taken me fucking ages to write as I know for a fact some of you come here for a laugh as well as an update and no cunt reads these aspiring to get depressed. To be honest though, sometimes I do struggle to find the words to cover off both elements. By that I mean, giving a status update without leaving you, the reader feeling like that Mona Lisa sheila looks in that painting.

I’m trying to write this and wipe away my first wife’s tears at the same time. Being the considerate poor li’l wifey though, she helped me by grabbing a tissue to wipe tears from two pairs of eyes and then whispered how romantic it is to share tear tissues. Fuck man, I’m just happy we’re finally saving money on tissue usage but seriously though, that shit can not not change anyone.

Fuck you cancer! You’re a cunt and can fuck right off if ya don’t mind.

Ya haven’t killed us yet. Came pretty close; but close don’t count for shit.

The ol’ girl has struggled a bit of late with her last few Chernobyl sessions affecting her quite badly. She’s been in heaps of pain and continually fatigued as fuck so even her good weeks ain’t like the good weeks of old.

We recently went to see our surgeon. You know the one… Peter the good cunt. Sounds a bit like one of Jesus’s disciples aye. The first wife even put on her nice perfume and a semi decent pair of undies… Nana undies can be semi decent if they are new and don’t have holes apparently.

We were trying to find out why she’s been in so much pain of late. Still not 100% sure but our oncologist who I’m not allowed to call a gnome, even though he looks like one, gave the ol’ girl an extra week off chemo which, along with a couple more blood transfusions helped our cause.

the power of touch

In fact the day after that decision she surprisingly woke up feeling pretty bloody good and stayed like that for almost a whole week… Sometimes we’ll take what we can get.

It’s fair to say though, we’ve probably been a tad dehydrated of late as too much eye sweat can leave one feeling not very flash at all.

For those who’ve followed these blogs since day one, you’ve no doubt shared a ride with bumps as big as an erect nipple on a lovely perky tit and lows almost as bad as food poisoning the All Blacks in rugby world cup finals. But I’d also like to think that along the way you’ve snuck in a few laughs… and maybe the odd bewildered comment along the lines of ‘Did he really just say that?’. That actually leads nicely into your our quote of the day…

Oncologist: (talking about chemo options) Hopefully we can get that all mopped up.

Me: Oooh yippeee, Marjana just loves mopping and she’s real good at it too.

we don’t always get a menu at hospital but when we do we try and get beer

Going back though to that milestone of surviving an entire year, there are actually a few significant dates we wont forget and we ain’t even sure which one/s to celebrate.

It was back on August 12, 2020 when Marjana woke up with swollen glands, called in sick to work and went to the doctor.

The next few days were an absolute cunt of a time to be honest with the worst being August 19, 2020 when she was officially diagnosed with cancer – stage four metastised bowel cancer to be precise. That’s one mean as memory scar right there.

A few days later came hospital admissions for chemo portal insertion, colonoscopy and ultimately the all important life saving ‘subtotal colectomy’ surgery, which for normal people translates to cutting her guts open, ripping out some cancer tumours followed by a little bit of realignment plumbing and sewing the guts back up.

None of the above were happy times but they are milestones that do deserve to be celebrated. Milestones (at least for me) usually involve drinking a bunch of piss so tend to end up as a good time. I’m sure I read somewhere that this month Virgos gunna luck upon some beer skulls and jager shots but in all honesty it could’ve just been my own fortune telling.

Ideally, I should compile a list of all the people who have helped us through this last year but I refuse because I’ll inevitably leave some cunt off, only to remember after posting the blog. Y’all know who ya are anyway.

People often ask how I’m going and to be honest it’s a cunt of a feeling seeing ya loved one in absolute agony and crying uncontrollably because of it.

It’s also a cunt of a feeling seeing the extreme physical change in ya first wife and not that I give a fuck if she’s getting fat or has fuck all hair or whatever but seeing how it’s affected her with a body aging many years in a single year is what’s sad. It’s not just the body but the emotion and mental state that’s affected her because of it.

To see, hear and experience that is quite simply just a cunt. But it ain’t nothing compared to her living it in the first person.

enjoying the sun

This particular blog wasn’t meant to read like an All Blacks Rugby World Cup loss but real life cancer stories more often than not are unfortunately not usually of the fluffy feel good genre.

Not sure if you’ve heard but there’s this little thing called COVID-19 that also came into the mix around cancer diagnoses time so there’s also that freaky element. Not that we’re the only ones affected by lockdowns and spastics stockpiling toilet paper but one can’t reflect upon the last year without at least mentioning Corona.

If ya are looking for a good time, I do recommend not getting cancer. If, for some reason you did fall victim to it then I personally recommend fighting that mongrel cunt of a thing like their ain’t no tomorrow because one day that may just be the case.

As this particular blog took a few weeks to write, it’s only right that I finish by adding that right now my first wife is actually feeling good this week. So good that we were even able to go on a dump run date together…

it’s Dump Girl

… and go to see this really cool band called Victor Bravo live.

Victor Bravo are (left to right) Ben Cutting (guitar/vocals), Jakeb Brown (drums/vocals), Jack Flack (lead vocals/guitar) and Kodi Winslow (bass/vocals)

Victor Bravo live at The Zoo

#42 The cold sore woman

If ya ever feeling a little bit too happy just google How long do people with stage four bowel cancer live and it should have resolve that over happy feeling for you.

There are of course fantastic outcomes and happy endings that even trump those of the back alley massage parlour, but ordinarily, the survival rate ain’t that of a paper cut and nor is it the life expectancy of a tortoise.

On a kinda positive note though, upon being diagnosed with bowel cancer the life expectancy is usually substantially longer than that of person involved in a fatal crash, following actual impact.

I imagine some of you reading this are like what the fuck man, but it is what it is and that’s the reality we live with. Plus there is always faith and hope and love and laughter and of course miracles… and beer and mean as feeds.

I reckon I’m ticking at least a couple of those traits and what I don’t quite achieve my first wife covers off in boundless supply.

I’ve found that sometimes when dealing with this cunt of a disease there are moments when life is all fine and dandy and then there are those other moments when you come home from work feeling happy but drained and end up with seeping eyes.

Enough of this sad shit reading though and back to something I’m much better at, taking the piss.

With the first wife’s brain being a little bit fucked up with her getting dizzy and shit we thought, hey lets go spend a chunk of money by seeing a neurologist sheila… so yeah, we did that.

She performed some funky moves but not like 1970s disco moves. Nah these were more like a cheating Springbok tactics against All Blacks in the dark hidden areas of a ruck, but just without the kicking and eye gouging aspects.

The neurologist sheila works out of the same flash high end rooms as our oncologist. You know the one that I’m not allowed to call a gnome, even though he looks like one but it did lead to our quote of the day though.

Oncologist that I’m not allowed to call a gnome, even though he looks like one: I see you’ve seen the neurologist?

Me: Fuck man, your office is flash as. You must be real rich cunt. I thought I was in a resort it was so flash.

My first wife carried around a cold sore for a week or so and when she gets cold sores, fuck does she get cold sores! Not sure how, but on her they even grow bigger than her whole head. Ok, maybe I am taking the piss a little but she does laugh like fuck when I do this little impersonation of her cold sore scab flapping in the wind. She even said she could be one of those squid faced pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Anyway the cold sore woman and I were walking hand in hand and she asked me if I’m embarrassed to be seen with her like this. Fuck man, I actually thought she was talking about her cancer, wearing a beanie and hobbling around like a sore footed penguin on hot coals but apparently she was talking about her massive deformed growth of a cold sore.

Me: Oh that? Your cold sore? Nah man, I’m all good. Fuck, I invented the cold sore (well my ol’ lady did when she used to use the dirty soggy germ infected dishcloth to clean our faces when we were too young to fight back).

A few little every day life updates to show our life is still somewhat normal…

The first wife and I helped Kodi move home. His wings continue to grow with him now living in his second flat. He might have the freedom he doesn’t get at home but he doesn’t get the mean as feeds he gets at home… or the cuddles from his Mama.

Had a mate bring three good cunts around to help extend our deck into a decent sized balcony. All for a carton of piss and a decent feed on my smoker. Jakesy and his chippie mates didn’t quite get the job finished but their efforts were massively appreciated. Every little thing that makes my first wife happy is a beautiful thing.

We attended a formal mass for Dilan becoming a school prefect at his school, Iona. Such a proud moment and worth it if only for the smiles it brought to my fist wife’s face.

He’s still looking for a 4×4 so if anyone has one for sale or knows of one can you give us a heads up please.

Headed to Straddie a couple weeks back for a bit of a catch up to bag out a piece of shit cunt. Always a good time on Minjerribah and nice to reconnect with a few peeps.

Also, being old cunts now a lot or our celebratory events are due to funerals, 50ths, 60ths, divorces etc rather than 21sts or weddings. Last week however, we attended a ripper of an event where a couple of sheilas hooked up after walking down an aisle.

Marjana absolutely loved this day because she got to catch up with a bunch of workmates and also witnessed two of ’em get married. I loved it too in case ya wondering. Was heaps of free piss. Here’s to you two sheilas who obviously have good taste because they’re the ones who gave my first wife this cool blanket as a gift.

The first wife hates the cold but secretly uses it as an excuse to cuddle up to me via a blanket

We continue our lives with fortnightly Chernobyl day visits including yesterday. Last week’s session though was postponed because we both had colds. Well the first wife had a cold. I had man-flu and that shit fucks up humans with cocks and balls big time.

These last few weeks have also seen a drastic change in the ol’ girls ability to walk without pain. We don’t exactly know why but it seems like all of a sudden and very much out of the blue Marjana’s body has taken a little bit of a beating of late because when she’s cold she seriously walks like a little old lady full of arthritis. We hope this is only a temporary thing because it’s a bit of a cunt, and not of the good cunt variety. Watch this spot I guess.

Just because my old Silverdale rugby mates were on the piss together