Patrick Swayze has always been a fighter on the big screen. Now's he's proving his warrior worth in real life.
Speaking out in detail about his battle with
pancreatic cancer, the 56-year-old actor tells
Barbara Walters of his daily struggles, including his insistence not to take pain medication while filming his new A&E crime drama The Beast, premiering next week.
"I've never been one to run from a challenge," Swayze said during the interview airing Wednesday and excerpted today on
ABCNews.com. "You can bet that I'm going through hell. And I've only seen the beginning of it."
While again refuting tabloid rumors that he's on his deathbed, The Ghost star admitted that the cancer has generated "a lot of fear," particularly after learning that it had spread to his liver.
"There's a lot of stuff going on," he added. "Yeah, I'm scared. Yeah, I'm angry. Yeah, I'm [asking] why me. Yeah, I'm all this stuff."
Swayze, looking lean but still fit, also opened up about the moment he first discovered he had the cancer; it was one year ago on New Year's Eve.