My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [69]
March 5, 2009
We’re in the van driving a million miles an hour on the way to Frankfurt for Farrah’s procedure with Dr. Vogl. It’s like being in the Indy 500, the way these people drive. I pray we’ll make it there in one piece.
Later
We’re on the way back, literally flying along the autobahn at breakneck speed in blinding rain. Mr. Carstens, our ancient German driver, ignores me every time I tentatively ask, “Aren’t we going a little fast?” I’m too nervous to lie down and try to sleep even though it’s after eleven o’clock and I’m exhausted. Farrah is sound asleep in the backseat. I’m glad the day is over for her and it went smoothly. I guess that’s easy for me to say, considering I’m not the one who had to have her main artery sliced open and a long tube of wire threaded into her liver, where the chemo and antibody drugs were injected. She had to rest for four hours afterward in a recovery room to make sure the bleeding had stopped, and then we were allowed to leave.
I feel numbed by all of this. My friend no longer looks like herself. She now looks like a cancer victim: weak, gaunt, and without her glorious mane of hair. She looks like a little fragile bird. It’s heartbreaking.
March 6, 2009
We returned to the clinic yesterday. Today Dr. Jacob came into my room to talk about how things went.
“Dr. Vogl was unusually quiet,” I told her. “He didn’t say much. I don’t think he was happy with what he found.”
“No,” she said. “He was very unhappy with the condition of the liver. There are so many tumors in the liver now, he says it’s very serious and doesn’t know if she will make it. But I have hopes that these other therapies will start to work and that the perfusion he did yesterday will shrink the tumors in the liver and the pelvic region.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“She will not have very much time,” she answered solemnly.
Dr. Jacob said that Farrah knows the liver is serious but doesn’t know how bad it is, and Dr. Jacob doesn’t want her to know. I agree. Farrah has to have hope to keep fighting.
Maybe I’m starting to understand why this has happened with Mimmo. I need to be with my friend all the time and not be distracted by anything else. Dr. Vogl’s words are still ringing in my ears: “Spend all the time you can with her.” I can’t believe this is happening. But despite it all I still have hopes for a miracle.
March 10, 2009
Farrah’s hernia site, where Dr. Kiehling operated, hasn’t healed properly, and there’s a large hematoma there. She went into the hospital yesterday for Dr. Kiehling to perform a second surgery. Now Dr. Jacob doesn’t know how long it will be before she can have the next liver perfusion. It’s starting to feel like we’ll be here forever. We’re booked to go back on the twenty-third, but I don’t see that happening.
March 11, 2009
Things are looking up. Last night Farrah was better. Our friend Dominick Dunne is here at the clinic, and he gave us some of his videos. We watched The Two Mrs. Woodwards, and ended up giggling about men in my past before going to sleep.
“This is fun,” Farrah said. “Kind of like having a slumber party.”
I felt like I had my girlfriend back for the moment. These times seem to be fewer and further apart.
March 13, 2009
I don’t know what got into Farrah today. She threw a bottle at the housekeeper and knocked everything