It is funny how two celebrities can face death in different ways. As you know, Patrick Swayze has stage-4 pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is a tough one – there are usually no symptoms, so when it is discovered, it is in an advanced state and if very, very lucky, the patient may get five more years of life.
(Photo by Alan Light is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License)
I have always thought Patrick Swayze was a pretty classy guy – I mean he has been married to the same woman for 33 years, which is like a 100 a Hollywood marriage years. And he just always seemed like an honest, down to earth guy. Now, he is showing class and realism while handling his fight with cancer. Last night, he told Barbara Walters that while he has been aggressively fighting the cancer, “One thing I’m not gonna do is chase staying alive. You spend so much time chasing staying alive, you won’t live.”
While he seems to have done well since the diagnosis, even finding time to work on his upcoming series “The Beast” on A&E, he is rational. “I’d say five years is pretty wishful thinking,” he told Walters in the interview. When Walters ended the interview, she said she would be back in a couple of years to interview him again. Swayze said, “I’ll be here, or I won’t.” Gulp, that just makes me want to cry.
On the other hand, while Swayze realizes how precious life is in the face of losing it, another celeb recently tried to take his own life. Willie Aames was riding high in the ‘70s and ‘80s on shows like “Eight is Enough” and “Charles in Charge.” But as the ‘80s ended, so did his acting jobs. Willie’s only had a few acting jobs since “Charles in Charge” ended in 1990, with one of those few jobs being on “Celebrity Fit Club.”
Recently, the news was released that Aames tried to commit suicide this past Thanksgiving. He told Star magazine that he had to declare bankruptcy and had his car repossessed. Then, after his wife of 22 years, Maylo, left him, he hit rock bottom. He left his home in Kansas and lived in a rented room in Los Angeles. Aames, 48, said in the interview, “I stole a bottle of Jack Daniels from the guy I was renting the room from. I’d been sober for 20 years when I took that first drink…It got so bad I put a knife to my throat and cut myself in six places.”
Aames went on to say the police came and took him away in handcuffs. He spent time in a California psychiatric ward, but is now hoping to rebuild his life as a furniture builder.