Edwards will continue presidential campaign despite wife’s cancer

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – John Edwards said Thursday his wife’s cancer has returned, but said he will continue his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.\n“The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly,” Edwards told reporters, his wife by his side.\nThe recurrence of the cancer – this time on Elizabeth Edwards’ bone – presents a setback for the couple, both personally and politically. But both said they would stick with their plans to campaign vigorously for the nomination.\n“From our perspective, there was no reason to stop,” Edwards said. “I don’t think we seriously thought about it.”\nEdwards had canceled a Tuesday evening house party in Iowa to go with his wife to a doctor’s appointment, which his campaign described as a follow-up to a routine test she had Monday.\nFaced with questions about how his wife’s illness affected his political future, Edwards said he will pursue his second bid for the presidency, but: “Any time, any place I need to be with Elizabeth I will be there – period.”\nElizabeth Edwards, 57, was first diagnosed with cancer in the final weeks of the 2004 campaign. The day after Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and Edwards, his running mate, conceded the election to George W. Bush, Edwards announced that his wife had invasive ductal cancer, the most common type of breast cancer, and would undergo treatment.\nElizabeth Edwards underwent several months of radiation and chemotherapy for the lump in her breast. Her husband’s campaign has said she had recovered from the illness.\n“I don’t look sickly, I don’t feel sickly. I am as ready as any person can be for that,” she said at the news conference.\nJohn Edwards said a biopsy of her rib had showed that the cancer had returned.\nThe bone is one of the most common places where breast cancer spreads, and once it does so it is not considered curable.\nBut how long women survive depends on how widespread the cancer is in the bone, and many can survive for years. The longer it takes for cancer to spread after the initial tumor, the better the prognosis. She was diagnosed in 2004.\nChemotherapy and radiation are standard treatments, along with use of drugs that specifically target the bones called bisphosphonates. Other treatments include hormone therapy if the cancer is responsive to estrogen.\nDr. Lisa Carey, Elizabeth Edwards’ physician, said that initial tests showed some very small suspicious spots elsewhere, but that the therapy focus would be on the bone. Asked where else, she said “possibly involving the lung.”\nCarey spoke to reporters following the news conference.\nThe couple, married 30 years, have a grown daughter, Cate, and two young children, Emma Claire and Jack. Their teenage son, Wade, died in 1996 when high winds swept his Jeep off a North Carolina highway.\n“We’ve been confronted with these kind of traumas and struggles already in our life,” Edwards said. “When this happens you have a choice – you can go and cower in the corner or you can go out there and be tough.”\nElizabeth Edwards added: “We’re always going to look for the silver lining – it’s who we are as people.”\nEdwards is running in the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates. Polls show Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama ahead of him, but he is making a strong showing in Iowa, site of the nation’s first presidential caucus. To emphasize his commitment to the race, Edwards said he was leaving North Carolina to go to New York, Boston and later California – all big fundraising locales.