My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [67]
“I don’t know,” he said. And then, “She could die any day.”
I called Dr. Jacob afterward and asked if she’d spoken to Dr. Vogl. I told her what he’d told me and she said she knew. I asked her if I should call Ryan and get him to come over.
“Not yet,” she said. “It would only complicate the situation right now. Let me do these tests and see how everything looks in a few days. If, or when, you need to, you can call him.”
I can’t say anything yet, not even to Ryan? It doesn’t seem right. I feel like he should know, but I don’t want to panic him prematurely.
I can’t believe I could be losing my best friend. What am I saying? I am losing her. It’s a matter of time. Though tonight, she sure didn’t seem near death. She was disappointed that the news wasn’t better, and she didn’t even know the full extent of it. I look at her now and she doesn’t look like Farrah. What is happening to my friend before my eyes? I want to make it all stop and go away and I can’t.
February 22, 2009
It’s 2:30 A.M. I went to sleep around ten last night. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but sure enough, four hours later I’m wide awake. I just took one and a half Ativan, hoping that’ll do the trick. The last thing I want is to be awake in the middle of the night with nothing to do but think. Earlier this evening, Farrah asked Eileen, the nurse who was with us in Frankfurt, what had happened to Jonathan, the nice Englishman we’d gotten to know here on our last trip. We had filmed him talking to Farrah for the documentary. He had a similar cancer that had also spread to his liver and he was undergoing a similar treatment. Farrah is a very private person, but the cancer had given her a feeling of having something in common with so many people.
“He died day before yesterday,” Eileen said quietly. I caught my breath. Then I turned and saw the effect this news had on Farrah. She got very quiet and didn’t say a word. He’d had the same kind of cancer she has, and she was so positive that he was beating it. He had been a beacon of hope for her.
Dr. Vogl came into the hotel room to check on Farrah around ten this morning. He was quite upset with the doctors back home. He said her liver was in good condition when she left here last June, and he couldn’t understand how it had gotten into this kind of shape between then and now. He actually seemed angry about it. He’s a man of few words, but you definitely knew how he was feeling. He was happy with the CT scan they did after the chemo embolization, however. It showed that the tumor that was causing the leg to swell had already shrunk by 30 percent, which is highly unusual. Her leg is already better this morning.
After that we got dressed, had breakfast, and made the hellish five-hour drive to the clinic. We made a bed in the back of the van for Farrah, who wasn’t feeling very well, but she couldn’t sleep. Little wonder. Mr. Carstens, the crotchety old driver from the clinic, had rented a VW van, which was so light and flimsy that you could feel every bump in the road. I actually felt so carsick that I had to take some of Farrah’s nausea medicine.
We finally arrived around six o’clock and Dr. Jacob was waiting for us. She wanted to talk to Farrah about what Dr. Vogl had found and about the treatment plan she wants to start right away. She said Dr. Vogl had called her three times yesterday and three times this morning, he was so concerned about how things had progressed. She reiterated that the tumor on the lymph node in the lower abdomen was the size of a tennis ball, and that’s why Farrah’s leg was so swollen and she was having such pain. Dr. Vogl had put most of the chemo into the primary tumor and the one in the lymph node because they had to be treated aggressively. She has to go back in ten days for the full liver perfusion.
“It’s not good, but I still have hope,” Dr. Jacob said. “When I no longer have hope, I will tell you to get your affairs in order.” At least that seemed more hopeful than what Dr. Vogl had said to me in private. Dr. Jacob says that Farrah has