My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [61]
“I can hear you’re better,” I said to her, “because you’re mean as a snake.” She always gets that way on pain medication.
November 7, 2008
I just got home from the hospital. I want to cry, but it’s like the tears are all blocked up inside me. I feel like I’m a robot going through the motions, or one of the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
When I spoke to Farrah this morning she sounded drugged and confused. She thought she was having an MRI but wasn’t sure. I spoke to Dr. Piro and he said she was going to have a colonoscopy and biopsy. He’d know more about what was going on when he got the results later. I called Farrah back, explained what was going on, and told her I’d come to see her afterward.
“Is there anything I can bring you?” I asked.
“Anything you’re baking,” she replied.
“I’m baking a cake for the movie at Carole and Bob’s tonight. I’ll bring you a slice.”
Around four thirty I called Dr. Piro and he was in Farrah’s room talking to her. Somehow I knew by the tone of his voice that it wasn’t a good conversation. I said to tell her I’d be over there shortly. I was on the way to the hospital, nerves on edge, when he called me back and confirmed my fears: the original tumor has gotten larger and has to be removed as soon as possible. The treatment at City of Hope is obviously not working. He mentioned CyberKnife surgery and that he was looking into various options.
“She’s pretty upset about it,” he added. “Try to stay positive when you see her.”
I walked into the room while she was trying to eat a little of the bland dinner on her hospital tray. She looked at me and started to cry.
“The IT-101’s not working,” she said.
That said it all. During the four months since we came back from the clinic, the tumors have not only increased in size but they’ve spread. I told her not to lose hope, that Dr. Piro felt there were a number of options. The nurse came in to give her more pain medication, and soon Farrah was barely coherent. But she was determined to eat some of my homemade cake, so she dove into a piece.
While she was in the middle of eating it, she drifted off to sleep. As I began to gently lift the container from her chest, she suddenly grabbed it with both hands.
“You’re not taking that anywhere,” she said, and we both laughed.
She drifted in and out of sleep from the heavy sedation. Then, out of the blue, she said, “I’m going to miss you so much.” It was all I could do not to cry.
“You won’t miss me because you’re not going anywhere.” Part of me wants to still believe that, but it’s getting harder every day.
At one point, I thought she’d gone to sleep, so I started to tiptoe out the door. Just as I was sneaking out she called my name. She clearly didn’t want me to go, so I sat down again by her bedside. I said nothing; there was nothing to say. We just hugged each other for a long time, and I finally left as she drifted off to sleep.
I came home and went through the motions of getting ready for bed. For the first time in probably five years, I didn’t turn on Fox News the minute I walked in the house. I just needed the silence. I talked to Dr. Piro again tonight and asked point-blank, “She’s not going to make it, is she?”
“She’ll pull through this now, but if you’re asking me if she’s going to beat it, the answer is no,” he replied.
I guess I’ve known it for some time now. From Dr. Vogl, when we spoke in Frankfurt, and certainly from the last scan, but now it seems more imminent.
I spoke to Ryan from my cell phone in the hallway outside her room. I could feel his sadness through the phone.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” he said. “I feel like I’ve done this movie before, but Ali MacGraw is still alive.” He meant Love Story, of course.
I can’t allow myself to think about losing this battle, about losing her.
November 8, 2008
I talked to Farrah this morning and she told me she’d fallen down in the night and hurt herself. She’d been throwing up again as well. I went to see her at the hospital around six. She was sleeping soundly