Cancer Kids Spurn “Junky” Michael Phelps

A Eugene, Oregon-area boy scheduled to meet Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps has elected to cancel the appointment in light of the photograph that surfaced earlier this week picturing Phelps smoking a marijuana bong.

Despite the unbridled excitement 10 year-old Brian Tanner initially felt over the news that his hero was planning to visit him at Providence Childrens Hospital where he is fighting a form of inoperable brain cancer, Tanner now says he’d, "rather die" than meet Phelps.

"At first I thought it’d be pretty cool to meet him because I thought he was a winner, but only losers do drugs," sniffled a tearful Tanner, "Michael Phelps is a junky dopehead." 

Reportedly, Tanner hasn’t been the only disappointed child to spurn Phelps since the infamous photograph was released. 

Melanie Duncan of Baltimore, Maryland, the mother of a 9 year-old boy suffering from leukemia, described how her son Jacob reacted to seeing the picture of his idol possibly smoking marijuana.

"Well, Jacob doesn’t say much since the doctors had to remove his neck, but we got the message when we found the photo along with several others he had of that man (Phelps) on the bottom of his vomit pan," she said.

"I guess they don’t call it 'dope' for nothing," Duncan added.

Meanwhile, Phelps gave his take on the cancellations during a phone interview with ESPN this afternoon.

"Yeah, I'm the loser," Phelps chuckled, "Even though the last time I checked I was the one with the 14 gold medals, not cancer."