Elizabeth Edwards set a heroic example for the country Thursday when, with her characteristic smile, she announced that she has incurable cancer but will continue to help her husband campaign for president.
“The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly,” a more somber John Edwards said at a Thursday news conference in Chapel Hill, N.C., before the pair left for New York to raise campaign funds.
It’s astonishing that in the face of such challenges, the couple could decide not to “cower in the corner,” but rather exude a positive attitude and together pursue their goal: the presidency of the United States. We wish them well.
Edwards is among the top three Democratic contenders, along with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and is off to a strong start in Iowa, site of the first 2008 caucus.
The nation first met Mrs. Edwards, 57, during the 2004 presidential election, when her husband was John Kerry’s running mate. A lawyer, she was smart, gregarious and motherly all at once. It was at the end of that campaign that John Edwards announced his wife had invasive ductal cancer and would undergo treatment.
The Edwards have three children. Another child, 16-year-old son Wade, was killed in a 1996 car accident.
Mrs. Edwards’ cancer was believed to be in remission until she cracked a rib on her left side recently, went in for a checkup and doctors discovered the cancer on a right rib. Because it had moved from her breast to her bone, the couple said it was no longer curable but treatable. Edwards said that while he will continue his presidential bid, “Any time, any place I need to be with Elizabeth I will be there – period.”
Even while the Edwards put their best face forward, Dr. Lisa Carey, the oncologist treating Mrs. Edwards, indicated small suspicious spots elsewhere, “possibly involving the lung.” Carey said they were awaiting the results of other tests within the next two weeks. She declined to give a prognosis, saying survival depends on how widespread the cancer is. Mrs. Edwards described her upcoming treatment as a “less debilitating kind of chemotherapy.”
White House spokesman Tony Snow, who himself has battled cancer, called Elizabeth Edwards a “powerful example for a lot of people – and [a] good and positive one.”
In the future, when we contemplate Americans who exhibited strength in the face of adversity, we’ll think of Elizabeth Edwards. “We’re always going to look for the silver lining – it’s who we are as people,” she said. We wish the best for her.
