Patrick Swayze Acknowledges He May Only Have Two Years To Live
Posted January 7, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Actor Patrick Swayze admits his days may be numbered – but insists he’s not giving up.
The Dirty Dancing star, in his first television interview since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, told Barbara Walters that although he’s defied survival rates he realizes how grave his condition is.
“I’d say five years is pretty wishful thinking,” he told Walters. “Two years seems likely if you’re going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I’d better get a fire under it.”
It’s been a year since Swayze, 56, was first diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and at that point the disease had already spread to his liver. Most patients die within six months, and according to the American Cancer Society pancreatic cancer only has a five percent, five-year survival rate.
“You can bet I’m going through hell,” Swayze told Walters in the interview to be broadcast Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of fear here. Yeah, I’m scared. Yeah, I’m angry. Yeah, I’m (asking) why me?”
However the actor denied recent tabloid reports suggesting that he was at death’s door.
“Am I dying? Am I giving up? Am I on my death bed? Am I saying goodbye to people? No way.”
Swayze has stunned friends, family and fans with his resiliency – he underwent aggressive chemotherapy and treatment with an experimental drug. And he avoided painkillers in order to be able to film the new TV detective series The Beast.
“I think everybody thought I was out of my mind, you know, thinking I’m gonna pull off a TV show,” he said of the grueling, 12-hour workdays.
“When you’re shooting you can’t do drugs. I can’t do Hydrocodone or Vicodin or these kinds of things that take the edge off of it, ’cause it takes the edge off of your brain.”
Swayze says he and his wife of 33 years Lisa Niemi are touched by the show of support from fans.
“I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life, not lived in the shadow of cancer but in the light,” Swayze told Walters.
“What winning is to me, is not giving up, is no matter what’s thrown at me, I can take it. And I can keep going.”
Actor Patrick Swayze attends Stand Up To Cancer at the Kodak Theatre on September 5, 2008 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Caulfield/Stand Up To Cancer via Getty Images)
