She’s in Washington now, having recently begun a 16-week regimen of chemotherapy. She’ll have surgery following the chemotherapy. The family issued a news release saying that a biopsy Tuesday showed that the cancer had not spread.
Edwards is the wife of former vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, who grew up in Robbins. She has spoken to the press for the first time since being diagnosed with cancer on Nov. 3, the day her husband and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts conceded that they’d been defeated in the election.
Edwards gave People magazine an interview during which she talked about the challenges she’ll face and how her sickness has affected her family. The magazine is coming out today.
“I have a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old who waited for me through the campaign, anticipating that I was going to be there,” she told People. “I have to be there for them. I promised.”
Edwards, who is 55, told the magazine that she discovered a lump in her right breast while she was in the shower on Oct. 21. The lump is “smooth, like a cyst filled with fluid, sort of like a robin’s egg,” she said to People.
The malignancy is called invasive ductal cancer, and it’s the most common type of breast cancer. It can spread through the milk ducts. According to the American Cancer Society, if the cancer is caught early enough, patents with invasive ductal cancer have a high survival rate.
Women over 40 are recommended to have annual mammograms. Edwards hadn’t had a mammogram for several years and told People Magazine that she should have known better.
“It’s too long to have waited,” she said. “There is no excuse. I should have gotten one before now.”
Edwards, who had been campaigning with her husband and by herself, stayed on the campaign trail for eight days before seeing her doctor or telling her husband.
The Edwardses have a grown daughter, 22-year-old Cate, a recent graduate from Princeton University. Their first child, Wade, died in 1996 in a car accident at age 16. The Edwardses also have a 6-year-old daughter, Emma Claire, and a 4-year-old son, Jack.
Elizabeth Edwards recalled the death of her son in her interview with People and related that pain to her fight with cancer.
“To be perfectly frank,” she said, “there is an odd place after losing a child where you think somehow your life is worthless. This (diagnosis) is a reminder that this is the life you’ve got and you’re not getting another one. Whatever has happened, you have to take this life and treasure and protect it. In a sense, having cancer takes you by the shoulder and shakes you.”
When she told her young children that her treatment was going to make her hair fall out, they laughed, she told People. Cate just hugged her mother.
“I think she’s afraid of losing me,” Edwards said.
Sen. Edwards’ first term in the Senate is winding to a close. He opted not to run for re-election in September 2003, preferring to make a bid for the White House. According to Edwards’ Senate office, the plan is for the Edwardses to remain in Georgetown, where they now live, until she completes her treatment.
Doctors at Georgetown University Medical Center are treating Elizabeth Edwards. When her treatment is over the family plans to build a home on 100 acres of land they own near Chapel Hill.
Said Edwards of his wife, in People magazine: “From the minute this happened, not a whimper. It’s all strength. I don’t know anybody else who could do that. It’s just amazing.”
Edwards has received support from Kerry and his wife, Teresa. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney sent notes of support.
People who want to send messages can do so at elizabeth@oneamericacommittee.com or send cards to Elizabeth Edwards, P.O. Box 5428, Washington, D.C. 20013.
