Patrick Swayze: This is how he reacted to the cancer diagnosis

September 14th marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Patrick Swayze (1952-2009). The “Dirty Dancing” star died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 57. His widow Lisa Niemi (67) now remembers the first moments after the cancer diagnosis – and the difficult time afterwards.

The first thing she did was call her sister-in-law

In the “Amy and TJ” podcast, Lisa Niemi described in conversation with the hosts Amy Robach (51) and TJ Holmes (46): “When he first found out that he had pancreatic cancer, he turned to me and said: ‘I am a dead man’.” She didn’t know much about pancreatic cancer at the time, but her husband immediately realized the severity of the disease. The doctor also recommended that he get his affairs in order “sooner rather than later.”

In fact, she even found out about the cancer diagnosis a few hours before Patrick Swayze did because he was so disoriented after an endoscopic procedure. “The first thing I did was call my sister-in-law, who is a brilliant oncologist in Houston, Texas, and when I told her the diagnosis she said, ‘Oh no, we need a clinical trial for him. I don’t want you to hesitate “I want you to have him in treatment within a week.'”

He said to her: “I want to live”

Life changed from one moment to the next, “and after that it’s just not the same anymore.” Everything has completely shifted. “We saw everything so positively, but I’ll tell you what, it was like living in a complete nightmare 24/7.” Niemi also recalled a moment at their ranch in New Mexico when they talked about perhaps wanting to go camping one last time before his death. “It was a beautiful day and he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘I want to live,'” she said.

The actor also thought about how he will be remembered. “I have to say he needn’t have worried at all, he is still very much in people’s minds. He knew he had achieved great fame.” But he also knew that “he could be difficult at times.” But most of the people around him “never saw this difficult side and absolutely adored him.”

The couple met at his mother’s dance studio and married in 1975. The two classically trained dancers appeared in many films and TV shows, often as co-stars. The couple also starred together in a play that became a 2003 film, “One Last Dance.”

She received a lot of criticism for getting married again

The public relationship made it difficult for her to deal with fans after his death, she said. It was particularly difficult when she married again in 2014. For this she came under a lot of fire and had to be asked nasty questions about how she dared to marry another man. “There are some pretty rabid Patrick fans out there who think I’m evil or who just don’t like me because I was married to him. You just learn to deal with it and move on.” Of course she could still love her husband even if she lost him. But: “Life is too short not to find love and it is too long to be alone.”