Patrick Swayze to Co-write Memoir with Wife
Patrick Swayze will co-write a memoir with his wife, Lisa, which will include chapters about his ongoing battle with cancer, Fox News reports.
The actor, best known for his roles in Ghost and Dirty Dancing, will speak to publishers next week about the project, which his representatives told Us Weekly would not be strictly an inspirational piece. Swayze was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer last year.
Swayze's new show, A&E's The Beast, premiered on Jan. 15. He told Us Weekly that he had only missed one and a half days of filming due to treatments. A few days prior to the show's premiere, Swayze was admitted to a hospital with pneumonia, although he has since been released, according to E! Online.
"I'm alive, and planning to stay that way," the actor told People magazine.
In an ABC exclusive with Barbara Walters on Jan. 7, his first interview since the diagnosis, Swayze revealed the origins of his diagnosis, which started in Dec. 2007.
Despite his attempts to keep it secret, the news of his diagnosis broke in mid-2008, when tabloid reports suggested Swayze only had five weeks to live. The typical survival time for patients with such advanced stages of the cancer is roughly six months, ABC said.
"Watch me!" Swayze said he told his doctors. "You watch what I pull off."
Doctors have taken an unorthodox treatment route with Swayze, combining traditional chemotherapy methods with the experimental treatment drug, Vatalanib, according to ABC. The course has allowed Swayze to continue production of The Beast while still in treatment.
According to the entertainment blog, Hollyscoop.com, the five-year survival rate for people with such advanced stages of pancreatic cancer is less than five percent. While Swayze told Walters that he was "going through hell" with the disease, his continued productivity suggests the actor is keeping an optimistic outlook on life.
"What winning is to me is not giving up," he said. "No matter what's thrown at me, I can take it and I can keep going."