My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [66]
I wonder if we’ll go back to Germany. I don’t even know if she could travel at this point.
February 1, 2009
Mimmo called today; he still does periodically. He said he had a dream about me last night, a very sexy dream. He said he misses me. I’m not sure how I feel anymore, but I do miss him—or at least I miss what we had in the beginning. And that’s probably not going to come back. I asked him if he’s been seeing anyone and he said (in Italian), “Yes, I’ve been dating a German girl some.”
“Is it serious?” I asked half teasingly.
“No, no,” he replied quickly. “I really don’t know yet.”
After we hung up, I thought to myself with a little pang, Hmm…he found someone awfully quickly.
February 9, 2009
Boy, a lot has happened in a short space of time. Farrah had another scan and it wasn’t good. The tumors have grown again and there is more cell activity. Dr. Jacob came into town and we met with her and Dr. Piro on Saturday. They both agree that Farrah has to go back to Germany for local treatment with Dr. Vogl. She can’t have any more systemic chemo because her platelets are too low, so there really is no other option. Something has to be done right away to stop the tumors from continuing to grow. I hope she can make this trip. She is so weak she can barely walk into her kitchen, much less get on a plane and fly for twelve hours.
But she has no choice but to go, and I have no choice but to go with her.
February 15, 2009
We didn’t leave today. Farrah got a bad infection in her arm from an IV site and has to be on intravenous antibiotics for a few days. The plan now is to leave on Wednesday, if all goes well.
A beautiful mind.
This photo was taken on one of our last trips to Germany, while we were shooting footage for the documentary. I like that Farrah—despite all she was going through—looks so beautiful, so vibrant in this picture. She seems happy and even refreshed. You’d never know what horrors she has been through. There is not a hint of them written on her sweet, smiling face. I marvel at her resilience.
A number of years ago, I took Farrah to meet spiritual guru Deepak Chopra. I convinced her to go with me for a week to his healing center in Del Mar. Farrah, being Catholic, had always been fairly religious but was not very familiar with the spiritual path that I had been pursuing. Previously, I had tried to teach her how to meditate by choosing a calming word or mantra and going into a peaceful place inside yourself.
When she met Deepak, he asked her, “Farrah, do you know how to meditate?” She replied, “Oh, yes! I do it quite often. Mostly in the car when I’m driving.” I think Deepak was probably speechless for the first time in his life.
Classic Farrah. Not even Deepak Chopra could change her. We laughed about her unique method of meditating for years.
BACK TO GERMANY
February 20, 2009
Farrah and I finally made it. We got on Lufthansa yesterday (just barely, as usual) and arrived in Frankfurt at ten thirty this morning. We went by the hotel, dropped the bags, and went straight to Dr. Vogl at the hospital. He did the MRI first and the chemo embolization right afterward. When I got him alone to question him about how it went and what he thought, he wasn’t very positive at all.
“It’s a disaster,” he said. “The primary tumor has grown very large and there is a tumor in her lymph that is blocking the drainage, which is why her left leg is swollen twice the size. I put ninety percent of the chemo into the primary area and the other ten percent into the liver.” I asked why only 10 percent in the liver, and he said, “The primary had to be the priority today.”
“How is the liver?” I asked.
“Not good.” He shook his head. “There are maybe forty tumors now.”
I thought maybe I’d heard wrong. “Forty?!” I asked, hoping he’d said fourteen and it was just the accent.
“Spend all the time you can with her,” he said solemnly.
“What are you saying? How long do you think she has?