Rants and raves from around the celebrosphere

By now, most people have heard that Patrick Swayze is in treatment for pancreatic cancer. Of course, many sources like the National Enquirer have run headlines about how he’ll be dead in three weeks, just as they do any time any celebrity even looks a little down in the mouth-gloom and doom moves those papers from the rack to the conveyer belt quicker than almost anything else.

His doctors have issued statements about how he has a limited amount of the disease and is responding well to treatment. Apparently, despite the funereal reports so far, the cancer is in the early stages and his prognosis is very good. We’re happy to hear that.

Stories like this only reinforce our happiness at not being household names. How must it feel to be standing in the checkout line with some bananas and toilet paper, and see your imminent death foretold in a 25-point font, complete with a picture retouched to give it a grim-reaper-like appearance? Maybe that really is the price one pays for lifelong fame, we don’t know.

Still, it must suck.

The guy started out with dancing chops and goods looks, and turned a hit movie, “Dirty Dancing,” into a career-builder that made him a hot commodity in the 80s. And when we say hot, we do mean hot. He’s come out on the top side of a drinking problem, survived family tragedies including the suicide of his sister, and from all accounts lives a happy, content life with his gorgeous dancer wife with whom he raises horses. And now, over twenty years later, it might be safe to say “comeback,” as A&E is considering turning “The Beast,” his recent pilot, into a regular series.

We’d much rather be writing about Patrick Swayze because he did something goofy in public, something we can gleefully poke fun at and snark about, than have to report on his battle with cancer. And we sincerely hope that next time we type his name, it’s to report that he’s cancer-free with a hit on A& E.

Everywhere you turn now you read about how only 5 out of 100 pancreatic cancer patients are still alive five years after the diagnosis. That does seem grim, but don’t carve his headstone yet. Given all that he’s managed in his life, it seems reasonable to us that he can be one of the surviving five. After all, how many good looking dancers out of all those who give it a shot actually end up a headline name in Hollywood like Swayze did?

Here’s to beating the odds.