Tough Times & Health Treatment Hiatus

Hi everyone,

It’s Malina here. I realised that it's been 6 months since Glenn and I shared any sort of update about what we've been up to.  

After such an exciting end to 2024, with the MGF reunion shows and our single Caught In A Web getting fantastic reviews, we weren’t planning to go quiet like this, but unfortunately, life threw some major curveballs our way that really stopped us in our tracks.

The first terrible thing that happened was, my Dad passed away in January, unexpectedly, from a stroke. I got a devastating call from Byron Hospital and a simultaneous knock at the door from Police. It was a huge shock.

Here I am with my Dad, Randal (aka Tark) and my brother Rhett:

Before I even had a chance to share the news with many people, I got sick. Quite sick. I got cellulitis from infected mozzie bites that developed into an abscess in my neck and I ended up in hospital for 5 days on IV antibiotics and having a million tests, scans and biopsies. We even had to postpone a celebration of life for Dad.

On the afternoon of Dad's funeral, I got another dose of bad news - I had a cancer in my mouth. On the left tonsil, to be exact.

The good news is, the doctors caught the cancer early (Stage 1) and acted swiftly, and it’s a highly treatable one – They are treating for a cure.

I have been having chemo-radiation therapy over the past four months and it has gone well.

The chemo and radiation is finished now (Hooray!), and I am in the healing and recuperation stage.

I have to say, treatment has been pretty brutal! Radiation to the mouth and neck affects swallowing and obliterates your sense of taste and smell. Chemo brings nausea and full-body side effects. You have to do what the doctors say, and take the medications they tell you to take, to get through it all. I didn’t know anyone who’d been through it before, and I discovered the treatment and self-care involved is a full-time regimen.

Here I am, (nervously) receiving my first round of chemo:

There have been some extra challenges along the way. I had to have a wisdom tooth extracted (on the eve of Cyclone Alfred!!!) before I could start the radiation, and I had an allergic reaction to the opiates the surgeon gave me.

I also had to have a feeding tube inserted through my stomach before starting treatment. This has been the toughest thing. It has been there for nearly four months now, but it's lucky I did have it put in, because there have been weeks where it was literally keeping me alive: I couldn’t eat by mouth.

Here’s a photo of me after the stomach tube insertion procedure (below), pretty dosed up on painkillers and anti-spasmodics, after a second night of agony in hospital with child-birth-level, lung-crushing stomach spasms that felt like a cross between a stitch and being winded. And they said this was only a minor procedure!! Yeah, right!

This was my first introduction to what cancer treatment is all about: It’s not a battle, it’s about staying calm, staying positive, taking it one day at a time... and enduring the cure.

So it hasn’t been easy or pleasant, but I’m grateful that we have these advances in technology and treatment nowadays that mean I have a very good chance to come out the other side and live a long life afterwards – I hope!

The Tweed Valley Hospital Cancer Care Radiation Oncology team, who I was seeing on a daily basis for two months straight, have been amazing and kept me buoyed up with their perpetual positivity and superb care. It’s not too hard to stay positive, if you just take it one day at a time, and you’re surrounded by people who cheer you on.

For someone used to using their body as their instrument, I will admit it has been daunting. The standard treatment for oropharyngeal cancer impacts various parts of the body you normally use for singing and dancing, from the neck and throat to soft palate, tongue, jaw, diaphragm to the torso and ears.

It has definitely been confronting, going from being pretty fit and well (aside from the cancer) to feeling the changes as the radiation burn and chemo take effect, not knowing if these things will ever be the same again…

I was crippled for more than a month with diaphragm and stomach spasms from the feeding tube, and I was unlucky to be one of the people who has a severe ototoxic reaction to the chemo – I had perfect hearing before this, but the chemo triggered tinnitus and over 70db of hearing loss in the high frequencies, where sibilance sits (ie. hissing sounds like “s”, “f”, “th” and “sh”), which at its worst made it sound bizarrely like the whole world was lisping.

I joke now that Glenn has the platinum records, and I have the platinum ears. (The chemo drug I had, Cisplatin, literally is a toxic dose of platinum.)

It has backed off though, and hopefully that hearing will eventually come back.

But… side effects aside, treatment has largely gone to plan, and I’m feeling optimistic there will be a good result. The radiation oncologist is very positive about it. He says he blasted the tumour pretty hard (35 sessions!), so fingers crossed the treatment will be successful.

Here I am on the last day of radiation treatment on 2 June 2025 – 8 kgs lighter, with a pretty red neck (cooked as they say), but feeling good and relieved to be at the end of it:

I‘m working on getting back to eating real food again now, and hopefully the feeding tube can come out soon. I am hoping – praying! – one day, favourite foods like chocolate and cake and citrus fruit and bread will taste good again. It’s a weird experience totally losing your sense of taste and smell and finding food inedible.

Next step will be vocal exercises – the doctor tells me singing warm ups will be better rehab than anything the hospital can give me, so I’m glad I’ve got that up my sleeve and I’m looking forward to spending time each day doing some gentle singing, and getting back to dance stretches and movement too.

Since I haven’t been able to sing or dance, I’ve been picking up my guitar and my bass again, which I hadn’t done for ages, and it has been really nice to just sit and relax and noodle on them. Therapeutic!

I also found the radiation and chemo machines rather musical and meditative, and this strange journey has given me some creative ideas along the way.

Our family and close friends and a few colleagues, who are aware of this health episode, have been incredibly supportive. It’s been hard for Glenn too, and we’ve been lucky to have people around us who have been tremendously caring and helpful and sending lots of love and positive vibes, which has meant a great deal.

Mum came over from Adelaide to stay with us for a couple of weeks and help out, and it was so good to have her here.

It’s been so unfortunate though, as we had plans to complete vocal recordings for a mini-album, make a videoclip for Caught In A Web and tour this year!!!

I am still hoping to get back on track, but it’s going to take a bit more time. Gotta do some more healing and rehab to rebuild my health and fitness first.

I had a nice surprise today. I had a look at AMRAP and made the happy discovery that over the past six months, while I’ve been focused on treatment, our poor neglected single, Caught In A Web, has been getting airplay from more than 30 local radio stations around the country.

Thank you to all the broadcasters who have picked up the song and who get behind Australian music! It’s not easy getting heard as an Australian artist these days and 98% of us are in survival mode…. but that’s a whoooole other story.

Lotsa love,

Malina xxxx

Super Massive