Anyone watch the patrick Swayze special last night?

[tom]

Anyone watch the patrick Swayze special last night?

It was very good. It seems that he has extended his life by at least a year ... if not more.

He seems to have tried not to let it effect his life and actually filmed an entire season of his series : The Beast.

He was given just a few weeks to live and it has been over a year. He is confident that he will have at least another 2 years of quality life and is hopeful to have another 5 years.

It was a great special.

[Jo]

i didn't. didn't even know it was on. i wonder if they will rerun it? or can it viewed online?

[tom]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...d-1232077.html

Swayze: 'Yeah, I'm angry. Yeah, I'm scared'

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In his first interview since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Patrick Swayze reveals his despair – and defiance
By Guy Adams
Thursday, 8 January 2009

REUTERS

Patrick Swayze on being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer: 'There's a lot of fear here. There's a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, I'm scared. Yeah, I'm asking, 'Why me?'
For an actor who stole a generation of teenage hearts by gritting his teeth, unbuttoning his black silk shirt, and sternly informing Jennifer Grey that "nobody puts Baby in a corner". Patrick Swayze greeted the arrival of pancreatic cancer in typically defiant fashion.

Told by doctors that he had anything from a few months to a couple of years to live, and advised to check straight into the nearest hospital, the star of Dirty Dancing instead decided to roll up his sleeves and round off his 20-year acting career with a long waltz into the sunset.
That was a year ago. Today, as he prepares for next week's launch of The Beast, the new TV cop show to which he devoted most of the intervening months, it seems nothing will quite so become the 56-year-old heart-throb as the manner of his parting.
In Swayze's first TV interview since his diagnosis, last night he spoke candidly about his cancer, which kills 95 per cent of its victims within five years, promising to carry on fighting, and performing, until the bitter end. "You can bet that I'm going through hell," he told TV viewers. "And I've only seen the beginning of it. There's a lot of fear here. There's a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, I'm scared. Yeah, I'm angry. Yeah, I'm asking, 'Why me?'"
He told the veteran ABC chat-show host Barbara Walters at his Los Angeles ranch, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, that he had first realised his health might be failing when he tried to celebrate the new year of 2008 with a glass of champagne.
"It would be like pouring acid, you know, on an open wound," he said. "Then my indigestion issues started getting constant. And then I started thinking, 'I'm getting skinny'. I dropped about 20lbs in the blink of an eye. When you see it in the mirror, when all of a sudden, you pull your eyes down and the bottom of your eyes go yellow and jaundice sets in, then you know something's wrong. I started doing a bit of research and realized this is not pretty. This is not a good thing."
Doctors diagnosed stage-four pancreatic cancer in mid-January, he said. Because it had already spread to his liver, an operation was not an option, so he underwent aggressive chemotherapy with treatment from an experimental new drug called Vatalanib at a hospital near San Francisco.
Although Swayze said he had already defied both survival rates and tabloid reports predicting that he should have "been dead a long time", he acknowledged time may now be running out. "I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," he said, sitting alongside Lisa Niemi, his childhood sweetheart and wife of 33 years. "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."
Swayze's comments, broadcast last night during an hour-long, prime-time special, gave a moving insight into the mentality of the Texas-born actor, whose breakthrough in Dirty Dancing made him one of the most bankable stars of the 1990s, headlining blockbusters including Ghost, Point Break, and The Outsiders.
Then in April, just a month after the National Enquirer revealed details of his illness, the actor announced that he had taken the lead role in The Beast, a 12-episode FBI drama produced by Sony. It was a bold move. To play Charles Barker, an undercover agent with dark secrets and what Swayze has described as "a death wish", he had to spend five months in Chicago, working 12-hour days, mostly in cold, night-time conditions, while foregoing the painkillers doctors prescribed as part of his treatment.
"I think everybody thought I was out of my mind, you know, thinking I'm going to pull off a TV show," he told Walters. "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, because it takes the edge off of your brain."
Yet in five months of filming, Swayze missed just a day and a half of work. He also managed, with the help of protein shakes, to put on 20lb after weight loss that had, in March, left him looking dangerously frail.
The launch of The Beast next Wednesday, on the A&E cable channel, is already one of the most eagerly awaited events of the new spring TV season. A pilot aired last year was described by The New York Times as a "tough, atmospheric character piece".
Swayze, who now has an appealingly lived-in look, could use a major hit. Despite having been responsible for a string of film successes, he also plumped for his share of flops, and since the turn of the century has struggled to land major roles.
Having turned down television for much of his career ("I thought I was De Niro," he once said) Swayze was at one point being reduced to succeeding reality TV star Darius Danesh in the role of Nathan Detroit in a West End production of Guys and Dolls.
Could The Beast be his crowning achievement? Stranger things have happened. Comebacks are in vogue, with Robert Downey Junior's return to form in Iron Man, and Mickey Rourke's film The Wrestler, tipped for Oscar success next month.
But Swayze is reluctant to discuss whether Barker might define his latter years. He is even less keen on questions about retirement, noting that Sony is on the verge of commissioning a second series of the show, to be filmed this year, with him still in the lead role.
"There is probably that little bird that flies through your insides and says, 'I sure would like to make a mark in life'," he said recently. "I've made a pretty decent mark so far, nothing to scoff at. But it does make you think, 'Wait a minute. There's more I want to do. Lots more. Get on with it'."

[Jo]

thanks tom. i'm sorry i missed the show.

i wondered, as i read that, why he didn't have regular checkups? i see no hint of that addressed. poor people, uninsured people i can understand, but why would someone of wealth not get check before the cancer got to stage 4?

i hope he has the chance to make his mark beyond the film career. .

[tom]

thanks tom. i'm sorry i missed the show.

i wondered, as i read that, why he didn't have regular checkups? i see no hint of that addressed. poor people, uninsured people i can understand, but why would someone of wealth not get check before the cancer got to stage 4?

i hope he has the chance to make his mark beyond the film career. .

He has pancreatic cancer ... supposedly it is very hard to detect. His first things were to get yellow eyes ( jaundice )


http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=3104


Early symptoms


The commonest types of cancer of the pancreas are exocrine tumours. The symptoms can be quite vague. And they vary depending on where the cancer is in your pancreas - in the head, body or tail. Early symptoms can include

• Weight loss
• Pain in the stomach area
• Jaundice
• More early symptoms

About 5 out of 10 people have jaundice when they first go to their doctors.


Weight loss



People diagnosed with pancreatic cancer may have recently lost a lot of weight (at least 10% of their total body weight) for no apparent reason. This symptom is more common in cancers of the head of the pancreas.

Pain in the stomach area
About 7 out of 10 people with pancreatic cancer first go to their doctors because they have pain. Pain is more common in cancers of the body and tail of the pancreas. People describe it as a dull pain that feels as if it is boring into you. It can begin in the stomach area and spread around to the back. The pain is worse when you lie down and is better if you sit forward. It can be worse after meals. Your abdomen may also be generally tender or painful if your liver, pancreas or
or gall bladder are inflamed or enlarged.
Jaundice

About 5 out of 10 people have jaundice when they first go to their doctors. Jaundice is yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes. The urine is darker than normal and bowel motions may be lighter in colour. Jaundice is more common with cancer of the head of the pancreas because the tumour blocks the bile duct. This tube carries bile into the duodenum. If it is blocked the bile ends up in your bloodstream instead. Bile contains a lot of yellow pigments so it turns the skin yellow. Jaundice is a common symptom of many liver and gall bladder diseases. It is often easier to spot in the whites of the eyes rather than the skin.

Jaundice without pain is the commonest reason for first going to the doctor in patients who have pancreatic cancer that can be removed with surgery (is 'operable').
More early symptoms
Other early symptoms might include loss of appetite and back pain.

Other symptoms of pancreatic cancer
There are other symptoms that you can have with cancer of the pancreas. You may have any of these symptoms from before you are diagnosed. Or you may develop them later. Of course, you may not have all of them. Not everyone has every symptom. But these non specific symptoms are common in pancreatic cancer. You may have

• Diabetes
• Itching
• Sickness
• Bowel disturbances
• Fever and shivering

Diabetes

Some people diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas are found to be newly diabetic. Some have been diagnosed with diabetes within the previous year. If you have diabetes you are not producing enough insulin. So there is too much sugar in your blood. The sugar is passed out of the body in the urine and takes a great deal of water with it. This causes

• Thirst
• Passing a lot of urine
• Weakness
• Weight loss and hunger because the sugars and starches you eat are being wasted in the urine

Itching

You may have itching if you have bad jaundice. The bile salts in the bloodstream cause itching in the skin.

Sickness
You may feel or be sick because you have jaundice or an inflamed pancreas. Both these conditions upset the delicate chemical balance of the body, which can make you sick. You may also be sick if the cancer, or inflammation around it, is beginning to block the duodenum. This will stop digested food from passing through to the small bowel.

Bowel disturbances
Again, if you have jaundice you may develop a symptom called steatorrhoea. This means fatty stools. You may pass frequent, large bowel motions that are pale coloured and smelly. These bowel disturbances can mean that you are not absorbing your food properly. So this may be a cause of weight loss.

Fever and shivering
You may have a temperature from time to time because you have jaundice or an inflamed pancreas. When your temperature is high you may feel cold and shivery.

Symptoms from rare endocrine pancreatic tumours
There are rarer types of pancreatic cancer that produce hormones. These are the endocrine pancreatic tumours. The symptoms are different for each type, depending on the hormone the tumour produces. They are

• Insulinoma
• Gastrinoma
• Somatostatinoma
• VIPoma
• Glucagonoma

Insulinomas produce too much insulin, causing weakness, loss of energy, dizziness and drowsiness.

Gastrinomas produce too much gastrin, causing peptic ulcers in the stomach or duodenum. This leads to severe pain, bleeding causing black tarry stools (faeces), and diarrhoea.

Somatostatinomas produce too much of a hormone called somatostatin. This causes gall stones, diabetes and diarrhoea with bulky fatty and smelly stools (steatorrhoea).

VIPomas produce too much of a hormone called VIP. This causes a great deal of watery diarrhoea, flushing of the face, and high blood pressure.

Glucagonomas produce too much of a hormone called glucagon. This causes a very specific type of skin rash (redness, ulceration and scabbing), anaemia, mouth ulcers and diarrhoea.

[tom]

One big thing from the interview that was noted ... Patric Swayze smokes ( YES STILL !!! )

That most likely played a role in his cancer as there is a strong correlation between pancreatic cancer and smoking!

Please dont smoke if you are reading this ( or even if you arent )

[Jo]

you know, tom, that is one thing that has been a real struggle for me. not smoking, not me, but dh. i wrote about that in my journal the other day. dh had quit smoking back in 2000 and didn't pick up the nasty habit again until we moved north in 2006. he says it was a reflex reaction from stress. he doesn't smoke much, a few a day but i was livid when i found out and now i struggle with the 'i don't smoke, i have cancer. he smokes, he doesn't have cancer'. it's so unfair.

and then i have to remember that my cancer has nothing to do with smoking nor is it hereditary. i still can't help but feel upset over it all.

i agree... DON'T SMOKE. it's no good for anything, causes a boatload of problems including spending hard earned money for a wasteful habit.

[Jo]

i am hearing just now on the news that mr swayze has checked himself into the hospital with what appears to be [forgive my spelling, if it's wrong] pneumonia.

[Jo]

news about swayze is good as far as the pnuemonia goes.
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Patrick Swayze, who has been battling pancreatic cancer, says he's doing well after being hospitalized with pneumonia last week.

Swayze had planned to attend a TV Critics Association media event on Jan. 9 to talk about his A&E series "The Beast," but the actor told People magazine that he called his doctor and checked into the hospital because of a cough that wouldn't go away.

"It made me suspect there was a possibility of some kind of infection," he told the magazine. "I wanted to jump on it before it turned into a problem."

Swayze remains in the hospital but told People that he's "almost in the clear."

Dr. Harold Frucht of the Pancreatic Cancer Prevention and Genetics Program at Columbia University in New York City said the change in chemotherapy regimen that Swayze recently mentioned to Barbara Walters during his first interview since his cancer diagnosis is probably to blame.

"He mentioned that his chemo regimen was recently changed -- this would probably be about a month ago," Frucht said. "It is possible that the new chemo is causing a decrease in his WBC [white blood cell] count, which would predispose him to infections."

In an exclusive interview with Walters, Swayze spoke candidly about his prognosis after living for a year with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
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there is a video of swayze at the following ABC news site.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainm...6649224&page=1