Media Showcase of Patrick Swayze Battling Pancreatic Cancer is Deplorable

Reports have already been confirmed with news sources such as the Associated Press and MSNBC that actor Patrick Swayze is battling pancreatic cancer. His representative released a statement when a tabloid spread around the headline that Swayze was dying of cancer. He is reported to be responding well to treatment by his doctor, and his mother has released a statement along the same lines. The details of his condition or what treatment he is receiving have not been shared with the press.

I think the media making a showcase of this man's private medical struggles is deplorable. While I have never had cancer myself, I have experienced what it is to be around those who have had cancer, and who have fought it off, and also those who have died because of it. It is a deeply emotional time for everyone involved and shouldn't be flaunted by the media.

The pancreas is a gland that produces hormones that control blood sugar levels and digestive juices. Cancer of the pancreas is difficult to detect and diagnose for multiple reasons. As an organ, its placement behind other organs tends to hide it, and sometimes there are simply so signs of the disease. It is only controllable if it is found before it has spread. If it has spread, then there is treatment available that will help prolong someone's life, but it is not likely to go into remission.

Cancer treatments usually make the recipient feel worse before they feel better. Chemotherapy has countless side effects, and radiation isn't much better. They both make dealing with the disease that much harder. They cause the patient to be tired, nauseous, achy, moody, weak, and just about any other effect a drug can have. It can take a healthy, average-weight person, and turn them into a skeleton in weeks. Hair loss is a bigger deal for the patient than most people think. It is very upsetting, because your appearance is so dramatically altered, and it is a loss of some of the person's self, as opposed to simply losing weight.

For pancreatic cancer, the treatments tend to be even more drastic than with many others. According to the National Cancer Institutes's website, even the first stages of pancreatic cancer are treated hard and fast: surgery, surgery with chemotherapy and radiation, or clinical trial treatments with chemotherapy and/or radiation are all ways that the first stage of the disease can be treated. There is no way of knowing which stage Swayze is in with the information that has been made known publicly. After the first stage, the aforementioned treatments are used, and others are added on, like surgery to prevent spreading of the disease, and more risky trials.

I can't imagine how much more trying this time will be for Swayze with the media hounding his every step, and his every treatment. Cancer has been difficult enough for my family to deal with without nosy reporters assuming they have the right to know what was going on in our minds and bodies.