In his first interview since he was diagnosed last January, Patrick Swayze spoke candidly about his battle with cancer in an exclusive sit-down with Barbara Walters for ABC News. The stage-four pancreatic cancer has severely altered his life, he said, and it may progress more quickly than previous reports suggested.
"Two years seems likely, if you're going to believe statistics," Swayze said of his life expectancy in the interview airing Wednesday night (January 7) at 10 p.m. ET.
The "Dirty Dancing" and "Red Dawn" star described the symptoms that first led him to suspect he was ill.
"I dropped about 20 pounds in the blink of an eye," the 56-year-old actor said. "And then 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."
Swayze remains determined to keep busy through his struggle; he worked 12-hour days for five months last year filming his new A&E police drama, "The Beast."
"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 said. "You can bet that I'm going through hell. And I've only seen the beginning of it."
A smoker for decades, Swayze acknowledged the likely connection between the habit and his condition. "I will go so far as to say probably smoking had something to do with my pancreatic cancer," he said. While he has not yet kicked the habit, he did say that he has "seriously cut down."
"The Beast" premieres on January 15.
