Patrick Swayze continues working despite cancer battle
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
Rumors that “Dirty Dancing” star Patrick Swayze had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer turned out to be accurate but the star isn’t as ill as the initial reports made him out to be. “Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far,” Swayze’s physician, Dr. George Fisher, told news reporters last week. “All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue. We are considerably more optimistic.”
The earlier reports also said that the “Ghost” leading man had been forced to retire from show business so he could fight the dreaded disease. That is also untrue. He has finished filming a pilot for a new television series on A&E called “The Beast” and if that show gets an order from the network the 55-year-old will be ready to report to the set for work. Perhaps the rumor got started when Swayze backed out of a movie titled “Fired Up” after he didn’t like the creative direction that the show was going in.
“He’s got such a big heart and been such a good and generous person. It breaks my heart to know he’s suffering. But he’s hanging in there and getting the best treatment,” said Swayze’s 81-year-old mother Patsy about her son’s medical fight.
