Those close to Lance Armstrong say the seven-time Tour de France winner is at the point where he’s refusing to spend time with people who aren’t suffering from cancer. “We all thought it was really great of him to start up the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and we sure admire him for his charity work, but I don’t remember the last time he was over here for dinner,” said Linda Armstrong, Lance’s mother. “I made him pork chops last Thursday evening, but he ended up eating meat loaf at a hospital with a 12-year-old boy with leukemia. Oh, then there’s Sunday. He said he would come over to stain my deck but he cancelled because Habitat for Humanity needed him to help build houses for cancer survivors. I’m thinking about scheduling a mammogram just to get his attention.”

Armstrong drew criticism during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when he announced he would donate money to survivors suffering from cancer. “Listen, I like people without cancer, I do. But they seem so complacent. So boring,” said Armstrong. “People with cancer just do it for me. They’ve just got this zest for life that’s so amazing. They’re so courageous. I don’t want to say that non-cancer sufferers are weak, but well, I just did.” Armstrong reports that he and fiancé Sheryl Crow are enjoying the new addition to their family—a 4-year old rotweiller named Zeus that has osteosarcoma.

ORIGINALY PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 20, 2005 IN VOLUME 3 ISSUE 30