My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [6]
I went to a little Kabbalah memorial for Evelyn Ostin this morning. Evelyn was the wife of Mo Ostin, who was head of Warner Bros. Records for many years—and she was one of the most beloved women in town. I studied Kabbalah in a group that met at her house every week. It was the one-year anniversary of her death, and Rabbi Eitan Yardeni, who taught our Kabbalah classes, gave a very inspiring talk about gratitude and how important it is to feel fortunate in your life instead of feeling like a victim. It felt like he was speaking directly to me; it struck a nerve. “Focus on giving back to the world instead of focusing on yourself,” he said.
Eitan said that our energy attracts situations into our lives and that the biggest disease we all have is selfishness. He said that “getting” will never make us feel fortunate, no matter how much we get, but that a spirit of gratitude will shift our energy and help us “get out of ourselves” and think about others more.
This is my biggest roadblock. I’m always in my head, focused on me or my kids, my personal world. I worry about the future—my future—and that worry can begin to consume me. I know I have to expand and get outside myself and find where I can really contribute my time and energy to help others. If I could just focus my brain! It always seems to be all over the place, like a wild horse that needs to be corralled.
October 13, 2006
I went with Farrah to UCLA for her radiation and to get the line for the chemo removed. She’d been up all night, terribly sick and in pain. They had told her this would be the worst day, but she’d had no idea it would be this bad. At least she won’t have any more chemo until the last week of radiation, so she has a four-week reprieve. I never realized that radiation causes so much pain; I thought it was the lesser of the two evils (chemo being the worst). I’ve never been this close to anyone who was going through cancer. It’s such a hideous process—painful, debilitating, and unrelenting.
By the time we got back to Farrah’s house, she was exhausted, but still managed to laugh and make a joke or two. Then she got serious and thanked me for taking her. “Sorry to have taken up so much of your time,” she said.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I wanted to do it.”
I realized she’s so much like me. I always worry that I’m putting friends out if they go out of their way for me. Farrah’s always there for everyone else—whether it’s her family, her friends, or people she’s working with. Now she needs to let people be there for her.
October 16, 2006
Farrah called from the hospital. They had to admit her because she had two blood clots from the IV line they had put into her arm. God, I can’t believe my friend has to go through all this. It’s ridiculous that the treatment itself is causing more problems for her. It makes me so angry.
November 2, 2006
Farrah has about three more weeks of radiation left. The doctors warned her that she might want to quit because it gets so difficult, but quit is not a word in Farrah’s vocabulary. She always seems to think people are exaggerating—that things can’t ever be as bad as they’d have you believe. She’s much more of an optimist than I am.
But she wasn’t prepared for this; neither of us was. The radiation is brutal and torturous. They keep increasing the dose until she’s up to about twenty-five minutes. That’s shocking to me. Our friend, who had lung cancer, was getting six minutes at the peak of his treatment. The side effects are painful and debilitating. Sometimes all she can do is sob because it’s so excruciating. And there’s no end in sight. Three more weeks of this.
Every day I call to check on her and see if I can do anything for her, but after she gets her treatment (which she does every day), she just wants to sleep. I always offer to take her, but Ryan or her assistant, Mike, usually goes with her. Ever since her cancer was announced, the paparazzi have been stalking her. The doctor’s office organized a way to get