Elizabeth Edwards Has Cancer

Dear [Lola],

First, I want to thank each of you for the support you have given to John Kerry and John Edwards. You gave it in a thousand ways: coming to our events, volunteering to set up and clean up, working the phone banks, knocking on doors, contributing, blogging, standing on corners with signs, whatever it took. Your strength carried us through.

You may have heard that I have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Your strength is carrying my family through too in this latest struggle, and this is a fight we will win. We have (and I say we because John has been with me every minute) started chemotherapy with tremendous confidence, confidence in our doctors, in our ability to face obstacles, and in our friends far and near who we know give us their thoughts and prayers and support today and will continue to do so in the months ahead.

So many of you have tried to reach me recently with your support, and I know that the Senate office and the Wade Edwards Learning Lab have been flooded with calls and e-mails. No complaints there, but in order to take a little pressure off of them, I have resurrected my old e-mail address at [email protected], where you can reach me. I will e-mail periodic updates to you about my progress from there, if you would be interested in getting those. Treatment should last until about next June with follow-ups every three months or so.

I hope you understand how much your support has meant to us. This thank you is to our new and expanded family.

Elizabeth Edwards

She's a fat woman who chooses at ages 48 and 50 to flood her system with hormones in order to have 2 more children. She doesn't lose any weight after they're born, either, upping her chances of getting breast cancer from about (assuming there's no family history or European Jewish ancestry) 1 in 10 to about 1 in 2. These are the odds, based in US statistics.

Though it's currently impossible to pinpoint a cause behind breast cancer, medical research has shown there to be an association between breast cancer and certain factors, such as older age, family history of breast cancer, having your first child after age 30 or never having children, starting periods before age 12, beginning menopause after age 50, and being overweight. And there are likely many other unknown factors -- and many are likely beyond a woman's control.

Research published as recently as April 2003 in the journal Sterility and Fertility offered new evidence that the fertility drug Pergonal may increase the risk of breast cancer in some women. As such, the researchers -- working under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development -- made a strong case for further study in this area.

At the same time, however, Pisarska reminds us that other studies have shown no link to breast cancer. In addition, she says research shows that breastfeeding lowers a woman's overall risk, as does pregnancy itself, and, that other hormones present in the body during pregnancy may also reduce some cancer risks as well.

"Again, we're back to the idea that there are clearly no finite conclusions on this subject -- and we need more studies and we need more statistics, before we can accurately draw those conclusions," says Pisarska.