Farrah's Story
Anybody watch this on Friday night? I have to say this was one of the worst most uninformitive "documentary's" I've ever seen. Been reading people's reviews and comments on the internet and had to add my two cents. The majority of people were "touched", "saddened", or "moved" by this. My opinion ran with the minority.
Hey, cancer's an ugly thing and has affected most people's life in one way or another. It's becoming a rare thing if you've never had it or know someone who does or did. My own father died of it, and my mother just had a brush with breast cancer herself. But most people aren't sitting around filming themselves looking like death warmed over. I would imagine that would be the last thing on your mind if you were that sick.
I'm not sure what Miss Fawcett was trying to accomplish here. If it was to "inform" us about this certain type of cancer it failed on all levels. It left the biggest unanswered question of all, "How the heck do you get this type of cancer?" All sorts of lurid ideas come to mind when you hear "anal cancer" and perhaps that's why they chose to forgo any explanations. So, as far as "alerting" us of this awful disease, it basically said, "This is what happens after you get it, period."
And even that is misinformation because the doctor's suggested a "colostomy" for her in the first place which might have saved her life but she refused. Instead, she chose to go the alternative route and wound up in Germany 6 different times subjecting herself to painful needle probing and a machine that went round and round her belly looking as if she was going through a car wash. I would think after the 3rd...no 4th...no...5th time of going through these procedures her "hope" for a miracle would be dimming but a sixth trip was on the horizon.
She never was "cancer-free" since being diagnosed so I couldn't understand how she thought she would ever be even after her first treatments. They just managed to shrink the tumors but they always came back. And here they kept on and on about how smart she was and how she'd talk to the doctor's about every little thing. What they showed looked to me like a half out- of- it drunk person asking the same questions over and over, it didn't sound so intelligent. She looked like she wasn't even paying attention when she had her first consultation in Germany. Didn't she get criticized for some fiasco performance on David Letterman a few years ago?
What struck me the most about her character is how afraid she is to die. Now that might sound like a strange quote because nobody really wants to die but we're going to anyway. Her determination to "live" in her condition is what mystifies me. She spared nothing to "live". Watching her sitting on a bed with a tote bag FULL of medicines and placing them in their little compartments made me sick. Is that really "living"?
I think of all the hundreds of thousands of dollars,(probably more like millions!) she spent on these treatments. The private jet to Germany 6 times! The fancy looking house she stayed at there. The treatments alone, my God. Everyone knows how expensive those are, I can't imagine any insurance paying for that.
If she had really wanted to "bring attention" to this type of cancer she would have instead donated that money towards research, don'tcha think? The selfishness of all this is what really galls me. I mean in the beginning, of course you're going to hold out hope that someone will be able to fix you so you can get back to your life. But how long do you hold out that hope? Geese, I just think the 6 trips were a little overkill. And then even after that as a last ditch effort she went ahead with some study here in the U.S. where they were poking the crap out of her arms trying to get a vein which took forever and AGAIN, the treatment didn't work. Can you say, "Enough is Enough," already?
And then you've got her "companion" of 30 years, Ryan O'Neal in tears half the time babbling about how "scared" he is and "I don't know what's going to happen". Well, DUH! She's going to pass on like anyone else in her poor spent condition. What are these people all afraid of? Where's their faith? I just didn't feel a warm second in the entire show. The moments were forced especially at Christmas when Farrah made her pies. Well, yes, of course they were trying to act normal and pretend nothing was wrong but you always got the feeling that the cancer just totally absorbed her thoughts every minute and anyone else who was around her. It's like they just couldn't forget about it and let it go and actually "live". And sitting there on the couch reading letters sent to her by other cancer patients was supposed to make us think she's helping people. But that was the only scene! Why didn't they show her reaching out and giving someone a call? Or visiting other patients? There was a time in 2007 she looked like she was feeling pretty good but instead she was out vacationing!
Then the nerve of spending time complaining about how the tabloids "exploited" her condition and her medical records were breached. What the hell did she think this documentary was? She wanted it exploited, just HER way and no one else's.
Of course I feel sorry for the lady,may God bless her, but they could have done so much more with this. Thumbs down! 
through every page (especially The Magoo Room Cats) but it was worth it knowing there are people out there who do these kinds of things! 
