"It's a love story. I won't know this world without her. Cancer is an insidious enemy."

Ryan O'Neal's Heartbreak over Critically Ill Farrah

By Champ Clark

Originally posted Thursday May 07, 2009 06:30 AM EDT

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20276981,00.html

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, an emotional and often teary-eyed Ryan O'Neal spoke for the first time about the devastating illness of his longtime partner, Farrah Fawcett, who has battled cancer for the past two and a half years.

"It's a love story. I just don't know how to play this one. I won't know this world without her," O'Neal, 68, says of his current role as caretaker. "Cancer is an insidious enemy."

Revealing for the first time how the anal cancer long ago spread to other parts of Fawcett's body, including her liver, O'Neal says, "She stays in bed now. The doctors see that she is comfortable. Farrah is on IVs, but some of that is for nourishment. The treatment has pretty much ended."

Fawcett, 62, herself tells of her journey through illness in Farrah's Story a two-hour NBC documentary the onetime Charlie's Angels icon shot with pal Alana Stewart that airs Friday, May 15.