Memorial Day stirs memories of beloved actor Patrick Swayze and his ultimate summer-love movie, ‘Dirty Dancing.’ Swayze fought pancreatic cancer for 22 months before his death at the age of 57 in 2009. His legacy continues in a recent quarantine version of his famous dance finale (with a standing lamp in the ‘Baby’ role because, social-distancing) and through his wife, Lisa Neimi Swayzes, tireless advocacy for pancreatic cancer research and the Pancreatic Action Network, (PanCAN).
Read MoreThe Path to Diagnosis
In his 2009 memoir, "The Time of My Life" which he and Lisa collaborated on during his illness, he wrote that he shrugged off his earliest symptoms, digestive issues, in late 2007. "I had been having some digestive trouble, mostly acid reflux and a kind of bloated feeling, for a few weeks," Swayze wrote. "
"I’ve had a sensitive stomach my whole life,” he wrote, “but lately I just couldn’t shake the constant discomfort. I wasn’t hungry and felt sick whenever I did eat, but I’d always been pretty healthy, so I figured the feeling would pass eventually." On New Year's Eve of that winter, Swayze took a sip of champagne, and "nearly choked" from the pain. "It burned like acid going down … a sharp, searing pain that brought tears to my eyes,” he wrote. “I’d never felt anything like it."
By mid-January 2008, Swayze's doctors revealed the cause: his bile ducts were blocked. He had stage IV pancreatic cancer. “For me, that initial shock quickly turned to self-criticism and blame,” Swayze wrote. “Did I do this to myself? What could I have done differently? Is it my fault?”
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After his diagnosis, Swayze and his doctors worked out an aggressive treatment plan, which included chemotherapy as well as the experimental drug vatalanib, meant to limit the blood supply to his pancreatic cancer tumors. Swayze offered his support to organizations like Stand Up to Cancer while reminding people that it's possible to go on living after a stage IV cancer diagnosis. In January 2009, his cancer metastasized to his liver and he developed pneumonia, as a result of a compromised immune system from chemotherapy. Patrick Swayze died the following September.
A Caregiver’s View: His Wife, Lisa
Lisa Niemi Swayze committed to being her husband’s caregiver and cancer teammate from the moment he was diagnosed. Cancer doesn't happen to just one person," she told Cancer Connect. "It happens to the whole family.”
“I made a decision that I was going to be who he needed me to be so that he could get betterwhether that meant holding his hand, getting his medication, making sure he got to his appointments, or," she laughs, "yelling at him if he was doing something wrong."
She documented his medical appointments, taking detailed notes: “I knew that while he had fabulous doctors, he was not the only patient they had, and I was willing to … dedicate myselfin a way nobody else could."
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Sources of comfort, she says, were friends who encouraged her to call at any hour, if she needed to talk. Her brother stepped in to offer help a year into their first, when her energy flagged. Gradually, she says, she learned that self-care for caregivers is essential.
After his death, Lisa published her own story: “Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss, and Moving Forward,” sharing her story for other cancer spouses and caregivers. "It's a very, very long process to make your way back from a loss like this," she says. “The fight with himas hard as it waswas, in retrospect, a lot easier than the fight that I've gone through without him. Because all of a sudden those days that were so precious are no more.”
Lisa has has served as a national spokesperson for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network to support their advocacy work in research funding and patient support. “My husband was one tough guy, and while pancreatic cancer may have taken him, it didn't beat him. He fought long and hard against this disease, and just because he's gone doesn't mean the battle is over … I'm continuing his battle for him.”
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