I hesitate to post this for fear of jinxing it, but the Daily Mail reports, based largely on these side-by-side pictures, the left from back in April, the right a recent shot of him looking healthier, that Patrick Swayze may be winning his battle with pancreatic cancer.

The Dirty Dancing star, 56, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer early last year, appeared to have gained a little weight and grown some of his hair back. He had even added a goatee. Tubes thought to be catheters for his chemotherapy could be seen hanging in front of his shirt but Swayze was smiling and even indulging in a couple of cigarette breaks.

It is thought he had an advanced form of radiotherapy which is offering new hope to sufferers.  The CyberKnife technique shoots hundreds of beams of radiation at hard-to-reach tumours.  Last week cancer patient Robert Ferrant, 62, became one of the first in the UK to have the procedure. Mr Ferrant, from Jersey, said the treatment meant he ‘actually had hope of a cure’ [Ed. note - not sure the patient is the best person to ask in cases such as these...].  The machine, which was reportedly also used by Swayze, shoots hundreds of beams of radiation at difficult-to-reach tumours.  It moves with the patient’s breathing, meaning it can target tumours deemed inoperable due to their proximity to major blood vessels.

I don’t go in for a lot of this science crap, so allow me to explain this for the layperson.  Imagine the CyberKnife standing outside your cells wearing a tight black t-shirt.  Cancer walks into your body and the CyberKnife stands in front of it with its arms folded across its chest and says, “Sorry, body’s closed.”  Then the cancer will be like, “Yeah? Well then what are those cells doing?”  And the CyberKnife will say, all calm like, “Dancing and having a good time.”  Then if the cancer still tries to come in, the CyberKnife beats the crap out of it with karate and tells it to go back to barber college.

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This picture comes courtesy of an Entertainment Weekly gallery of tattoos featuring famous people.  They provide no background information, but it would seem a rather portly gentleman had the idea of getting Patrick Swayze in centaur form tattooed on his calf.  The artwork’s not great, but the Swayze Centaur is definitely my new power animal.

Sidenote: My more modest instincts tell me they didn’t steal the famous people-animals hybrid idea from the Buseywolf or the Yokotortoise, but you never know.

An Indian newspaper who misspelled his name reports that Patrick Swayze will be back for the Point Break sequel.

If his health allows, the 55-year-old star would be reliving his character of ‘Bodhi’ for the film, reports Contactmusic.  Earlier this year, Swazye had confirmed that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. [Daily India via Moviehole]

Aside from the cancer, the other problem with Swayze coming back for Point Break 2 is that the first one ended with him paddling out during a hurricane and never coming back.  I guess they were thinking Swayze in heaven would be perfect to play Swayze in heaven.  But they may have to, like, uh, film it with a crew of purehearted dead folks?  Or someone will have to take over Whoopi Goldberg’s body and solve his own murder?  …I don’t think they planned this out too well.   

That’s right folks, they’re making a Point Break sequel.  IESB describes the plot thusly:

When Billy Dalton [Why not 'Special Agent Dalton Utah'? -Ed.], military special ops and star surfer, is disqualified from the pro-surfing tour, he takes off for the coast of Bali looking for the perfect wave.  While there he’s recruited by a private security force who are trying to find a gang known as The Bush Administration, surfing outlaws and modern day pirates who work like “The Ex-Presidents,” a bank robbing crew from Malibu twenty years ago.

So… moving on… when the original Point Break was released back in ’91 starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, and Gary Busey, it was like the perfect storm of cheesy acting.  I can’t imagine they could ever replicate that, but they did hire Jan De Bont to direct.  De Bont directed Speed, Twister, Speed 2, and was the Cinematographer on about a billion movies including Lethal Weapon 3, Flatliners, and Die Hard.  IMDB keywords for the original Point Break are “Adrenaline”, “Female Nudity”, “Male Nudity”, “Violent Movie”, and “Shootout”.  Put those five keywords together and the next two should automatically be “FUCK” and “YEAH.”  OO WHA AA AA A

Hopefully De Bont’s movie will ignore the plot of the last crappy Point Break sequel, The Fast and the Furious. 

("Point Brokeback", after the jump)

Thankfully, it appears my earlier report about Patrick Swayze may have been premature.  Now that a somewhat credible source has weighed in, things might not be as grim as they once seemed.

"Patrick has a very limited amount of disease [pancreatic cancer] and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far," Dr. George Fisher says in a statement. "All of the reports stating the time frame of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue. We are considerably more optimistic."

The actor’s rep adds: "Patrick is continuing his normal schedule during this time, which includes working on upcoming projects. The outpouring of support and concern he has already received from the public is deeply appreciated by Patrick and his family."

That’s strange, it’s almost as if The National Enquirer had embellished, or even exaggerated their coverage of this in order to garner cheap publicity.  But that almost seems… irresponsible, or even… sleazy.  No, I don’t believe it.  I’m sure it was all an innocent mixup of some sort.  Perhaps their writers passed up journalism school in favor of, say, Barber College.

In any case, let’s hope he gets over this quick – there are still so many ridiculous pictures of him that it would be a real shame not to be able to make fun of him again soon.  For God’s sake, look at this one!