It was Christmas 2007 and Farrah and I whipped up our traditional holiday pies—pecan and coconut meringue.
We spent New Year’s Eve 2007 at Tina Sinatra’s. We had dinner, watched a movie in our pj’s, tuned in to the ball dropping in Times Square at midnight, and celebrated with some champagne.
Farrah with Kimberly and me during Christmas 2007.
Farrah with her son Redmond and my daughter Kimberly at the Leonardis Clinic in June 2007.
In March 2008, Farrah and I escaped to Mexico shortly after her fourth trip to Germany when they declared her tumor free. It was the last time I remember Farrah really feeling good for a prolonged period of time.
As difficult as it was sometimes to be in Germany, the clinic was in such a beautiful part of Bavaria that it made things a little easier.
Keeping the faith in May 2008. Farrah was back in the hospital just before surgery with Dr. Kiehling. She’s holding her rosaries, as she always did before any surgery or procedure. It was her ritual to say a quick prayer and kiss them.
Me, Dr. Jacob, Farrah, and Ryan enjoying dinner on our first trip to Germany.
Here we are at a makeshift slumber party in February 2008. This very sweet girl, Francoise Shirley, who had a company called Sleepyheads, asked if we could send her a picture of us in the pj’s. We loved these flannel pj’s, so we put Farrah’s pink boa around our necks and climbed into her bed at the clinic to pose.
We talked for a long time, and when we hung up she was in better spirits. I told her it’s only normal to feel hopeless and depressed with all she’s going through. I don’t know how she’s doing it. I tell her again and again that she doesn’t realize how courageous she is, that she’s the bravest person I’ve ever known.
Her scan is this week, and we’ll know if the tumors are smaller, larger, or the same. She’s scared. I keep telling her it’s going to be okay, but truthfully, I’m scared, too. God, we just need a miracle. Please let there be good news. I don’t know how much more of this she can take. Thank you, God. Amen.
October 9, 2008
This is the big day. I’m sitting here in the waiting room at Dr. Piro’s clinic while Farrah waits for the radioactive material they’ve just injected her with to take effect. Then they will do the CT and PET scans. We were just laughing and talking…like we would on any normal day, about clothes, where we would eat afterward, going by to look at Jaguars if we had time. And yet after these scans are done, we’ll know the results, and her life could be radically changed—yet again. If the tumors haven’t responded to the trial at City of Hope and have grown larger or multiplied, I can’t even imagine what the next step will be. But I’m not going there now. I feel in my heart it’s going to be good news. But I’ve been wrong before, time and time again. So I’m frightened.
Later
It wasn’t exactly good news. Dr. Piro called us into the scan room and showed us on the screens where the active tumors were. We were both pretty shocked to hear that not only have the ones in the liver grown larger and multiplied but the primary one has returned and there appears to be activity in a lymph gland as well. Farrah didn’t cry. She asked questions and listened thoughtfully to the answers, but she was so disappointed. This was so not what we had expected. Dr. Piro went on to say that the growth might have occurred during the five or six weeks while she was waiting for Dr. Forman to get the approval to start the trial. He called Dr. Forman, who said that he would like to do three more treatments and then recheck the tumors in six weeks. He feels he needs more time for the drugs to work (if they’re going to was the part left unsaid).
I think we both grasped onto the hope that the drug will kick in and the next scan will show an improvement. We were both quiet when we got into the car. Finally, I just said, “I’m so sorry.” She got teary, but stayed amazingly strong and brave. She seems so fragile right now, my heart just breaks for her. I searched for something to say that would cheer her up, some thread of optimism. I reminded her that the man who was in the documentary about this chemo trial had been given two weeks to live and this drug saved him and he was still alive and thriving some years later.
We had planned to possibly go look at Jaguars today because her car lease was up and she needed to find another one right away. I figured it was out of the question now, but she said, out of the blue, “Let’s go look at those Jags.” So we put it all behind us and went off to the Jag showroom. Soon we were oohing and aahing over the beautiful new cars and it was as if we were just girlfriends on a shopping trip again. In the end, the man wasn’t able to give her a very good deal, so we went straight to Mercedes, where she found a car she loved.
When she had to make the decision about the number of years she wanted to lease it, she looked at me and smiled wryly. “This is where I always have trouble…”
Even in the middle of everything, we still had girls’ night in.
It was right after New Year’s, January 2, 2009. Farrah, Tina, Wendy Stark, and I all went over to Tina’s new house so that Farrah could see it. I was so glad she was getting out of the house for a fun evening. She needed it; we all did.
Tina’s house was so warm and Christmasy. We posed in front of the twinkling Christmas tree, which Tina always keeps up long after Christmas. Wendy brought a pound of decadent caviar, and we ate it on baked potatoes that Tina made. Farrah looked so good, so vibrant. Amazing, in fact, considering all she’d been through. We toasted to her health with champagne.
After a while, Farrah started to feel weak and had to lie down. Suddenly it was like we were back in reality, the past two years catching up with us in an instant. She was having these weird symptoms—one leg was swollen twice the size of the other one—and we were hoping for answers on Monday when she had a scan.
Just for this brief moment, this girls’ get-together, we were happy and not thinking of what tomorrow or Monday might hold. We were not worrying about Farrah or the doctors or cancer. We were simply in the here and now with the happiness and hope of a bright new year—a group of friends who’d been through it all.
LOOKING FOR A MIRACLE
October 21, 2008
I had to find all of Sean’s test results tonight so I could take it to the rehab center tomorrow. He came to me and said he’d relapsed and that he would like to go back into treatment. I’m so proud of him for making that decision on his own. I feel that this experience is going to help him grow up and become a responsible young man. I really believe in him; I always have.
November 4, 2008
What a horrible, horrible day—for so many reasons. I woke up feeling terrible—cramps in my stomach, weak, dizzy. I ran out to vote and stopped by to check on Farrah. There has been a nurse at the house since yesterday morning because she started throwing up again and couldn’t stop. I was alarmed to see how frail she was.
I called Dr. Piro and he wanted me to bring her straight to the hospital. She could barely make it into my car, and when she got there, I had to lay her down in the backseat. Of course then I had to maneuver my way through bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way to the hospital. The whole time I could hear her moaning, and I kept trying to catch a glimpse of her in the rear-view mirror. By the time we finally got there, the hospital director was waiting outside with a wheelchair, and he promptly took her to a room.
For the first time, I fear that this could be one of those setbacks that Dr. Jacob talked about and that she might not come out of it. I talked to Dr. Piro at length and we both agree that he’s got to keep her there and do whatever tests are necessary to find out what’s causing the vomiting and the bleeding. He even mentioned the possibility of exploratory surgery. Right now everything looks dark and hopeless. Where is my faith, God? Help me get it back.
November 5, 2008
I’m waiting for Dr. Piro to call me back about Farrah. I just spoke to her in the hospital and she sounds much better, more like her old self. She was giving some nurse hell because she couldn’t get a grilled cheese sandwich.
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�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 and I didn’t want to wake her. I sat in the dark room for almost an hour, looking at my frail yet still beautiful friend, hooked up to monitors and IVs. It breaks my heart. I know I keep saying that, but I don’t know how else to describe the way I feel. It’s as if there’s a big, gaping hole in my chest and it aches something fierce. It’s as if I’m grieving—but she’s not gone yet. I have to keep reminding myself of that. Farrah is full of surprises.
One time, when we were in Germany and Kim was there, Farrah admired her beautiful leopard-print pony-skin Yves Saint Laurent handbag. We both thought the bag was exquisite, and when we got home, Farrah was still thinking about it.
“You should buy one,” I told her. “I can’t afford it, but you can. You should get one.”
So she did, and she just loved it. Farrah is by no means an extravagant person. She still has her Texas values like me: “Don’t throw your money away.” But it was such a happy splurge, and she deserved it after all she’s been through. Then, after the next trip home from Germany, I was dropping her off at her home, and her assistant came downstairs with a huge box. In it was the YSL bag—the exact one Farrah had bought for herself. She wanted to thank me for what I had done for her. I was so touched, so surprised, and whenever I carry it, I think of Farrah.
November 9, 2008
I just talked to Dr. Piro for a long time. He’d just been in to see Farrah and she’s doing better today. The situation with the tumor is not good, however. He’s looking into the possibility of doing CyberKnife surgery, which is using a radiation technique to kill the tumor, but that may not be possible because of all the radiation she had at UCLA in the beginning. She was told, after the fact (of course), that she could never have radiation again in that area. So we won’t know until tomorrow. If that’s not an option, he has to investigate what all the others might be, as far as chemotherapy, to shrink the tumor.
November 10, 2008
I called the Christian Science Reading Room to get the name of a practitioner for Farrah. Marianne Williamson had suggested I get her the books and tapes, so I went over there several days ago to pick them up, and I started looking through one of the little pamphlets. I was reading about some of the healing miracles people have had and decided to call one of their practitioners. I spoke to a very nice lady who agreed to come to the hospital and see Farrah tomorrow. Meanwhile she would start prayer work.
November 11, 2008
I told Ryan I’d meet him at the hospital around 1 P.M. and that hopefully we’d be able to talk to Dr. Piro together. Farrah was doing much better today. The difference from yesterday was astounding. She was on very little pain medication and was much like her old self. Dr. Piro came in and told us what the options were and what he thought was the best way to proceed. It boils down to not having surgery but instead using chemo to try to shrink the primary tumor as well as the ones in the liver. He said he’d spoken to Dr. Vogl in Frankfurt and was waiting to hear from Dr. Jacob. I had spoken to them both earlier, and they would prefer she come back to Germany, but Dr. Piro feels that she’s too weak to make that trip now. I hope this chemo treatment goes well and she gets stronger again, so we can go back to Germany. It seems like the only place she’s had any success with treatment.
After Ryan left, I told Farrah about the Christian Science practitioner and that the woman had been praying for her since last night. “That’s amazing,” she said, “because I started feeling so much better around midnight.”
I told Farrah that the practitioner would come to the hospital, and she very much wanted her to. I called the woman and she said she’d be there in a couple of hours. When she arrived, it was quite a fascinating experience. Her name was Diane, and she was a lovely woman, probably in her fifties, who talked to us about Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the church. She spoke about the principles of Christian Science, which basically says that we are spiritual beings, not mortal, and therefore
disease, pain, suffering, and death are all false ideas, and not the truth about us.
“You have to see Farrah as God’s perfect child, free of disease and suffering,” she instructed me. She didn’t actually pray with us—she does that part of it in her meditation at home. She said that I could read the textbook to Farrah and that I should especially say the Lord’s Prayer, that it was a very powerful healing prayer.
After she had gone, I stayed for a few minutes and read Psalm 23 out loud: “The Lord is my shepherd…” Farrah seemed very calm and at peace. I really think there’s something to this Christian Science business. I headed for home feeling more positive than I have in a long time.
November 13, 2008
Farrah had the new chemo late last night and it went very well. Fortunately, she didn’t get sick from it. At the hospital, I called Diane, the Christian Science practitioner, and she spoke to Farrah on the speakerphone. I read a little out loud from the book before I left. Maybe this is the miracle we’ve been asking for. Things seem to be going so much better since this lady has been praying for Farrah. She’s leaving the hospital this morning to go back home.
November 15, 2008
Farrah and I may be going back to Germany. We both spoke to Dr. Jacob at length yesterday and she has some ideas that she feels certain could help Farrah. We’d have to leave on the first of December and be gone three weeks. That means getting home just before Christmas. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but if we have to go, we’ll just go. If this chemo that she just had is working, maybe we could go after Christmas instead. I’d prefer that, but maybe Farrah shouldn’t take the chance. It’s so hard to know what’s right.
November 28, 2008
It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I’m exhausted from cooking for two days. Farrah was feeling well enough to come over two nights in a row and make pies with me. This new chemo appears to be working, which means we have even more to be thankful for. We won’t go to Germany until after the first of January. God, I’m relieved not to have to miss the holidays at home.
My Journey with Farrah Page 14