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In the immediate wake of the diagnosis, "obviously it was a pretty tough scenario," says Scouros. "Both he and Lisa needed a little time together to just sit back and deal with this new reality in their lives. But he's moving forward. Both of them are very focused on doing what they have to do, following through with his medical team's recommendations so he can have a good outcome." To that end, "we got him a juicer and Lisa's getting creative with meals with high fat content because they tell us with this disease that the weight loss is your enemy," says Don. "I'm buying him gourmet chicken pot pies and we're putting them in the blender. He kept his weight up and now he's back on solid foods." Even in his low moments, says Don, his humor remains intact: "He said, 'Hey, little brother – this is almost enough to make a cowboy depressed.' He's the kind of guy who could be on the red carpet one night and the next day he's over with his pickup helping you move. He's just a good guy."
It's an appeal that Swayze has been blessed with since he first began performing as a child at his choreographer mom Patsy's ballet school. (His father, Jesse, was once a champion rodeo cowboy; he died of a heart attack in 1982.) It was at his mom's studio that he first met fellow dance student Lisa Niemi; she was 15, he was 19. "I knew she was the smartest chick I'd ever met in my life," he told PEOPLE last year upon the 20th anniversary of Dirty Dancing, which turned him into a superstar and sealed his status as an enduring '80s heartthrob. Before Lisa, "I had been meeting girls with names like Mimi and Angel. And for a long time I didn't feel like I deserved her." Those feelings helped Swayze pen his hit ballad "She's Like the Wind" for the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Writing that song, "I just felt at that time that I'm very, very lucky to have a woman who thinks I hung the moon," he recalled, "when I know I didn't."
