My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [40]
Now I’m lying on the other bed in Farrah’s room while she’s in surgery. They’re doing a deep biopsy of the anal area where the primary tumor was, and hopefully there will be no new growth or cancer cells. If there are, then Dr. Kiehling said he will have to remove it, but very carefully because it’s so close to the sphincter muscle.
This all seems like a dream and not a good one. To be going through all this with Farrah and find out I have cancer, too? But it was just a few cells in the cervix and they’re gone now, right? Do you spell cancer and cervix with a capital C? I don’t like giving cancer that much importance. It’s so odd. All my life I’ve been terrified of cancer, and now I find out I have or, if I’m lucky, had it. I feel kind of numb, but not particularly scared, as if it isn’t even real. Anyway, I can’t have cancer; I have too much to do.
June 5, 2008
It’s 3:30 A.M. and I’ve been awake for an hour, lying here in the dark, thinking…thinking…The tears have finally come. I’m confused and scared. Is this a wake-up call to stop living in fear, embrace my life, and enjoy every moment?
I can’t continue to live in this fear of the future: what’s going to happen when I run out of money?…how can I bear the pain of seeing my children struggle?…having watched my two sons almost kill themselves with drugs…seeing Sean’s frustration and pain and anger because of his disabilities and because of his relationship with his father…seeing my best friend suffer so much these past two years as she battles a tenacious, aggressive cancer…not knowing if she’s going to win this battle in the end.
I know I have a choice—to be a poor victim and run away from life or go forward with faith and confidence and still do something useful in the world. I forget I’m shooting this documentary with Farrah and she’s just made a deal with NBC to air it. So that’s no small feat. Maybe it will inspire and educate a lot of people and even save lives. I need to get off myself and thank God for all these blessings. Maybe I should try to shift my attitude and see the glass as half full, see the things I have to be grateful for.
Come on! Get off the pity pot and “be the fabulous woman you were meant to be,” as Marianne says. This is just another bump on the road.
God, give me the will and enthusiasm to live this life and let me find the joy and happiness in it. Let me start seeing that glass as half full, even three-quarters full.
Change my perception of my life, myself, my kids. Show me what you would have me do to be a light in the world, God, and walk with me each step of the way. Heal me completely, Father, that I might be an example, and let me be the woman you would have me be in order to do what you would have me do.
And heal my sister Farrah in body, mind, and spirit that she might also be the woman you would have her be and give hope and inspiration to others.
Thank you, God.
Amen
For a man who deals with deadly disease on a daily basis, Dr. Kiehling is one happy fella. We met him in May 2007 during Farrah’s first trip to Germany. Farrah affectionately referred to him as “the mad scientist” because he was always laughing and smiling.
Perhaps it was his kind and humorous demeanor, but at first we weren’t quite sure what to make of him. We’d been told that he could do what no other surgeon in the States had suggested: remove Farrah’s anal tumor with ultrasound surgery. The tissue around it had been so badly damaged from the radiation that none of her doctors seemed willing to try this approach. But Dr. Jacob said she knew a surgeon who could do it, and in walked Dr. Kiehling. With an introduction like that, I think that both Farrah and I