tagged w/ Breast Cancer
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WWH – It was time for my yearly mammogram. I got the reminder card in my mailbox. I put it on the counter as a reminder to the reminder. I told myself that I couldn’t do it this week. I’m in the process of packing for a move. Just let me get this done and I’ll call next week.WWH – It was time for my yearly mammogram. I got the reminder card in my... more
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I can’t sleep. I can’t turn off my mind. I stare at my breast in the mirror. Wondering if it looks different. It doesn’t. It looks the same as it has always looked. Well, maybe not as it has always looked. It’s not as perky as it used to be. True breastfeeding miles, unknown.I can’t sleep. I can’t turn off my mind. I stare at my breast in the... more
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WWH-After being notified that they found “something” from my recent mammogram, I was instructed to schedule another mammogram.WWH-After being notified that they found “something” from my recent... more
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It was time for my yearly mammogram. I got the reminder card in my mailbox. I put it on the counter as a reminder to the reminder. I told myself that I couldn’t do it this week. I’m in the process of packing for a move. Just let me get this done and I’ll call next week.It was time for my yearly mammogram. I got the reminder card in my mailbox. I put it... more
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Former first lady Betty Ford has died at age 93, says the director of President Gerald Ford's library and museum.
CNNFormer first lady Betty Ford has died at age 93, says the director of President Gerald... more
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In this scene from "4th and Forever" episode "Back on Track," Coach Lara congratulates the team for raising 4,000 for breast cancer awareness during their winning game against Lakewood. Defensive Lineman Michael Teo is especially proud, as his mother is battling breast cancer.
"4th and Forever"" chronicles the 2010 football season of Long Beach Polytechnic High School, touted by Sports Illustrated as the "Sports School of the Century" and boasts the largest roster of high school players who have gone on to the NFL. After decades of success, Poly had a down year in 2009. They had their worst season in 15 years and lost to local rival Lakewood for the first time in over 25 years. After years of being pegged as "the team to beat," the aura of invincibility is gone. The players are worried that their hopes for a college scholarship have dimmed. The clock is ticking and the question is: Can Head Football Coach Raul Lara pull the team together for one more season of greatness? And, can the players avoid the temptations of the street, succeed in the classroom, and emerge victorious on the field?
Tune in Thursdays at 9/8c for all-new episodes of "4th and Forever."
For more, go to http://current.com/4thandForever
Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning television and online network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, engages viewers with smart, provocative and timely programming -stories that no one else is telling in ways that no one else is telling them. Current's programming shines a light where others won't dare and boldly explores important subjects -- opening minds, sparking conversations and forming deep connections with its viewers. The channel's audience is comprised of affluent, curious, social and connected adults who crave the kind of entertaining, enlightening, witty and informative programming found on Current's TV and online properties. Current is now available via cable and satellite TV in 75 million households worldwide - 60 million households in the US - through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107); Time Warner ; DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon and AT&T. In the UK and Ireland, Current is available on BSkyB (Channel 183) and Virgin Media (Channel 155), and in Italy, Current is available on Sky Italia (Channel 130). Viewers can also find Current online at http://www.current.com.In this scene from "4th and Forever" episode "Back on Track,"... more
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The longest-running breast cancer screening study ever conducted has shown that regular mammograms prevent deaths from breast cancer, and the number of lives saved increases over time, an international research team said on Tuesday.
:http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-cancer-breast-mammograms-idUSTRE75R0NM20110628The longest-running breast cancer screening study ever conducted has shown that... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Laura Ziskin, 'Spider-Man' producer, dies at 61
Ziskin blazed a trail for women in Hollywood and overcame obstacles to get the 'Spider-Man' films made. In doing so, she paved the way for the superhero fare now standard during the summer filmgoing season.
Laura Ziskin was the primary creative force behind the "Spider-Man" films and shepherded the second and third movies in the franchise while undergoing treatment for cancer. With Katie Couric and studio executive Sherry Lansing, she founded a nonprofit that has raised more than $200 million for cancer research. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times / February 7, 2007)
By Steven Zeitchik and Nicole Sperling, Los Angeles Times
June 14, 2011
When disagreements between some of Hollywood's most powerful people began to roil plans for a fourth "Spider-Man" movie several years ago, some in the entertainment industry were advising filmmakers to walk away.
But Laura Ziskin, the franchise's producer and primary creative force, decided to push forward. Even though it soon became clear the movie would have to be made without its star (Tobey Maguire) and director (Sam Raimi) — losses that would generally be considered deal-breakers — Ziskin took the then-unconventional route of starting over with a new director and actor. The result, "The Amazing Spider-Man," is set to be one of the major releases of 2012.
"She loved a challenge and she had a direct style," Lauren Shuler Donner, a longtime friend and fellow top Hollywood producer, told The Times on Monday. "She would just deal with the issues in a solution-oriented manner."
Or as Gale Anne Hurd, another A-list producer, said of Ziskin, "She was indomitable."
Ziskin, 61, died Sunday at her home in Santa Monica after a seven-year battle with breast cancer, according to a spokesman at Sony Pictures, where she had a producing deal. In interviews with friends and associates, a picture emerges of a woman who faced illness with the same no-nonsense zeal with which she made movies.
After receiving a diagnosis of Stage 3 cancer in 2004, Ziskin worked through the chemotherapy. Shuler Donner, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer four years earlier, told her friend that coming to the office or to a movie set was the best way to fight the disease's psychological effects. Although she was receiving treatments that ravaged her body, Ziskin shepherded two of the most significant pictures of her career, the second and third "Spider-Man" movies, under the shadow of the disease.
She also saw another solution to cancer's problem: using her Hollywood access to raise money. Soon after her diagnosis, Ziskin teamed up with news anchor Katie Couric and studio executive Sherry Lansing to found the nonprofit organization Stand Up to Cancer. The group has since held two televised events and generated more than $200 million for cancer research.
Born March 3, 1950, in the San Fernando Valley, Ziskin graduated from USC's School of Cinematic Arts in 1973. She started out writing game shows and working as a secretary at Playboy Films. Before long, she landed as an assistant to Jon Peters, who was producing films such as the Barbra Streisand remake of "A Star Is Born." Ziskin's first producing gig came when she started a company with actress Sally Field; in 1985 the pair made the dramatic comedy "Murphy's Romance."
In the quarter-century that followed, Ziskin made or oversaw a wide range of films, including the 1987 Cold War thriller "No Way Out," the 1991 offbeat Bill Murray comedy "What About Bob?," the 1990 Richard Gere-Julia Roberts romantic comedy "Pretty Woman" and 1997's James L. Brooks' Oscar-contending dramedy "As Good as It Gets." That last film — along with dramatic pieces such as "Fight Club" and "The Thin Red Line" — were movies she oversaw during a stint as a studio executive. Ziskin fought to get money for those films despite fierce resistance from corporate overseers who saw them as too risky.
Another producer and friend, Susan Landau, recalled the epic battles. "She always used to say that 'Every producer should get an Academy Award just for getting her movie made,' " Landau said Monday. "She read something, she grabbed it, and she forced it into existence."
But Ziskin is best known for producing the "Spider-Man" franchise. When she set out to make the first movie a decade ago, many in the industry doubted the broad appeal of comic-book adaptations, especially one with a female producer and a relative unknown actor in Maguire. Ziskin not only cast the young performer, she took the unusual step of bringing on her life partner, Alvin Sargent, an Oscar-winning screenwriter, to write the script. (Sargent, whom she married last year, survives Ziskin, as does a daughter from her first marriage, Julia Barry, who works at her production company.)
Ziskin was vindicated in the summer of 2002, when "Spider-Man" grossed more than $800 million around the world. The film paved the way for the superhero fare now standard during the summer filmgoing season. In a statement, Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-President Amy Pascal called Ziskin an "inspiring warrior."
More than any box-office achievement, Ziskin was instrumental in breaking a glass ceiling. "When you look around those [big summer] movies, there are not a lot of women on them, unless they happen to be married to the director," said "Austin Powers" producer Jennifer Todd, part of the next generation of women producers for whom Ziskin blazed a trail. "She said a lot for what women can be capable of. We don't just have to produce female-oriented material."
Ziskin also produced two Oscar telecasts, in 2002 and 2007. Her first effort was notable for landing Woody Allen, famously averse to awards-show hoopla.
At the Producers Guild Awards in January, Ziskin's voice was weak when she received the group's "visionary" award. "In my world, the hero always defeats the villain, the boy always gets the girl, and cancer is no more," she said.
Perhaps her most lasting legacy will be her admission to the inner circle of A-list producers, for decades considered an all-boys club. In Mollie Gregory's 2002 book about females and Hollywood, "Women Who Run the Show," Ziskin surveyed her new world.
"Men have built the cities, made and defined the culture, interpreted the world. At no time in recorded history have women been culture-makers," she said. "Movies are arguably the most influential, important medium in the world. They have a tremendous cultural impact. Because women are now making movies, then women's ideas, philosophy, point of view will seep into that culture. And that's never happened in history. Ever, ever, ever. We can't even see the impact of that yet."Los Angeles Times...
Laura Ziskin, 'Spider-Man' producer, dies at 61... more
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Only heart disease kills more Americans than cancer. Even with early detection and treatment, cancer has the power to maim and kill according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The pictures posted here may bother some of you as they are graphic, but cancer is not pretty but insidious, and left untreated, deadly.Only heart disease kills more Americans than cancer. Even with early detection and... more
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The rate of cancer is on the rise worldwide. When one is diagnosed with any disease relates to cancer, they began afraid to have themselves related with these abnormal growth of cells. In facts, here are some illnesses that are related with cancer or may be the precursor to the presence of cancer.The rate of cancer is on the rise worldwide. When one is diagnosed with any disease... more
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Jill Anzarut, a 35-year-old mother of two in Toronto, doesn't qualify for breast cancer treatment with a new drug that can prevent reoccurrence. Why? The lump she discovered in her breast is too small to qualify her for treatment, according to the guidelines established by Ontario's Medicare system. If she lived in British Columbia, Alberta or Saskatchewan, however, she'd receive the treatment without question.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/03/09/matt-gurney-ontario-tells-patient-to-come-back-when-shes-sicker/Jill Anzarut, a 35-year-old mother of two in Toronto, doesn't qualify for breast... more
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Like all things menopause, hot flashes are an unwelcome scourge for the middle-aged women who get them, ranging in intensity from merely bothersome to majorly disruptive to daily life. But could these mysterious waves of hormone-driven heat actually turn out to be a key predictor of future health? Two recent studies raise that tantalizing prospect.
The first, published this month and funded by the National Cancer Institute, found that women who experience hot flashes have a 50 percent lower chance of developing the most common types of breast cancer. It came right on the heels of a separate series of studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, which concluded that women who suffer from hot flashes also seem to be at higher risk of heart disease.
In short, menopausal hot flashes seem to be an early indicator that the sufferer can breathe a little easier about avoiding breast cancer, but should be extra vigilant when it comes to safeguarding her heart.
While none of these studies are conclusive—researchers need to replicate results to prove their conclusions are accurate—scientists are starting to rethink their long-held belief that hot flashes are a bothersome but benign rite of passage.
An estimated 70 to 80 percent of American women deal with hot flashes sometime during the menopause transition, but there is still a lot we don't know about them. The leading theory is that as a woman's hormone production declines, there's a change in brain chemistry that affects the hypothalamus, which controls things like blood pressure and body temperature. Small changes in ambient temperature can prompt the brain to over-react to signals that the body is overheated, resulting in a hot flash. Scientists speculate that hot flashes may also have a vascular component that affects the heart, while the very low levels of hormones that prompt hot flashes may protect against breast cancer.
Dr. Christopher Li, a breast cancer epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said he became interested in a possible link between hot flashes and breast cancer because both are affected by a woman’s declining hormone levels. Between 2001 and 2005, Li and his team interviewed 988 women (ages 55-74) who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, and another 449 who had not.
The results, published this month in Cancer Epidemiology, indicated that those who had suffered from hot flashes had half the risk of developing invasive ductal and invasive lobular carcinoma, two of the most common types of breast cancer, as those who hadn’t. The study also indicated that the worse a woman's hot flash symptoms were, the lower her risk of developing breast cancer. “Women who experienced the most intense hot flushes—the kind that woke them up at night—had a particularly low risk of breast cancer,” said Li, the senior author of the study. The results held even after controlling for differences in persistence of symptoms, as well as age and type of menopause.
Researchers expected to find that a woman's use of hormone therapy (HT) would be a major confounder for all study participants, but it didn’t turn out that way. While as a group, women who use a combination of estrogen and progesterone are known to be at greater risk of developing breast cancer, Li said that in his study, having a history of hot flashes reduced that risk by half, compared to women who use HT but never experienced this menopausal symptom. (In the recent past, many women were mistakenly encouraged to use HT to reduce their future risk of heart problems.) While Li said his data should not be misinterpreted to encourage more women to use HT to treat hot flashes or be lax about mammograms, he is hopeful that it might open up a new area of research to determine “what it is about these types of symptoms, the timing, the rate, the severity, that makes them protective against breast cancer. Could we use this information for prevention or therapeutic uses?"
"We’re at the beginning of this story and we’re not sure yet where it will lead us,” he says, adding that hot flashes may prove "to have a silver lining." Li, who is finishing up a second, similar study, said more results will be available soon.
Meanwhile, emerging research funded by NIH as part of the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) suggests that persistent and frequent hot flashes may be an early marker of adverse vascular changes associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. One study published earlier this year in the journal Menopause found that women who had frequent and persistent hot flashes (occurring on a minimum of six days over a two week period, and lasting at least two years) are at higher risk of developing CVD, particularly if they are also overweight or obese. Study results indicate that the risk of CVD linked to persistent hot flashes is similar to that associated with smoking and obesity.
Lead researcher Rebecca Thurston, assistant professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, said most researchers don’t think hot flashes cause changes that put women at higher risk for CVD, but may signal underlying vascular changes that need more attention. Diet may be a key piece of this, says Dr. Margery Gass, the executive director of the North American Menopause Society. Monkey studies indicate that eating an artery-clogging diet not only increases cardiovascular risk factors but prompts an earlier menopause. “There may be more toxic effects of these diets than we realized,” Gass says. “It could be that they are damaging the ovaries, which in turn, prompts the ovaries to make fewer eggs and follicles and less estrogen," perhaps leading to more severe hot flashes. Since heart disease takes decades to develop, persistent hot flashes may eventually be used to help doctors identify those at greatest risk of CVD at earlier ages.
“The bottom line,” says Thurston, “is that hot flashes may be telling us something important about women’s health.”Like all things menopause, hot flashes are an unwelcome scourge for the middle-aged... more
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The New York Times
February 8, 2011
Lymph Node Study Shakes Pillar of Breast Cancer Care
By DENISE GRADY
PART ONE…
A new study finds that many women with early breast cancer do not need a painful procedure that has long been routine: removal of cancerous lymph nodes from the armpit.
The discovery turns standard medical practice on its head. Surgeons have been removing lymph nodes from under the arms of breast cancer patients for 100 years, believing it would prolong women’s lives by keeping the cancer from spreading or coming back.
Now, researchers report that for women who meet certain criteria — about 20 percent of patients, or 40,000 women a year in the United States — taking out cancerous nodes has no advantage. It does not change the treatment plan, improve survival or make the cancer less likely to recur. And it can cause complications like infection and lymphedema, a chronic swelling in the arm that ranges from mild to disabling.
Removing the cancerous lymph nodes proved unnecessary because the women in the study had chemotherapy and radiation, which probably wiped out any disease in the nodes, the researchers said. Those treatments are now standard for women with breast cancer in the lymph nodes, based on the realization that once the disease reaches the nodes, it has the potential to spread to vital organs and cannot be eliminated by surgery alone.
Experts say that the new findings, combined with similar ones from earlier studies, should change medical practice for many patients. Some centers have already acted on the new information. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan changed its practice in September, because doctors knew the study results before they were published. But more widespread change may take time, experts say, because the belief in removing nodes is so deeply ingrained.
“This is such a radical change in thought that it’s been hard for many people to get their heads around it,” said Dr. Monica Morrow, chief of the breast service at Sloan-Kettering and an author of the study, which is being published on Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The National Cancer Institute paid for the study.
Dr. Morrow said that doctors and patients alike find it easy to accept more cancer treatment on the basis of a study — but get scared when the data favors less treatment.
The new findings are part of a trend to move away from radical surgery for breast cancer. Rates of mastectomy, removal of the whole breast, began declining in the 1980s after studies found that for many patients, survival rates after lumpectomy and radiation were just as good as those after mastectomy.
The trend reflects an evolving understanding of breast cancer. In decades past, there was a belief that surgery could “get it all” — eradicate the cancer before it could spread to organs and bones. But research has found that breast cancer can begin to spread early, even when tumors are small, leaving microscopic traces of the disease after surgery.
The modern approach is to cut out obvious tumors — because lumps big enough to detect may be too dense for drugs and radiation to destroy — and to use radiation and chemotherapy to wipe out microscopic disease in other places.
But doctors have continued to think that even microscopic disease in the lymph nodes should be cut out to improve the odds of survival. And until recently, they counted cancerous lymph nodes to gauge the severity of the disease and choose chemotherapy. But now the number is not so often used to determine drug treatment, doctors say. What matters more is whether the disease has reached any nodes at all. If any are positive, the disease could become deadly. Chemotherapy is recommended, and the drugs are the same, no matter how many nodes are involved.
The new results do not apply to all patients, only to women whose disease and treatment meet the criteria in the study.
The tumors were early, at clinical stage T1 or T2, meaning less than two inches across. Biopsies of one or two armpit nodes had found cancer, but the nodes were not enlarged enough to be felt during an exam, and the cancer had not spread anywhere else. The women had lumpectomies, and most also had radiation to the entire breast, and chemotherapy or hormone-blocking drugs, or both.
The study, at 115 medical centers, included 891 patients. Their median age was in the mid-50s, and they were followed for a median of 6.3 years.
CONTINUED…The New York Times
February 8, 2011
Lymph Node Study Shakes Pillar of Breast... more
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One in eight women will now develop breast cancer as rates have risen over the past decade, according to new figures. The number of middle-aged women contracting the disease has increased particularly sharply, with lifestyle factors partly to blame.
link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8301183/One-in-eight-women-will-develop-breast-cancer-as-rates-rise.htmlOne in eight women will now develop breast cancer as rates have risen over the past... more
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Active smoking elevates the risk of breast cancer. The development of breast cancer was associated with the higher quantity of smoking especially in youngers.Active smoking elevates the risk of breast cancer. The development of breast cancer... more
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Here's another reason why women should quit smoking. Apart from causing heart attack or lung cancer, puffing the smoke increases breast cancer risk.Here's another reason why women should quit smoking. Apart from causing heart... more
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Alstom
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January 21st, 2011
07:08 PM ET
Mastectomy for a preschooler
Aleisha Hunter is not your average 4-year-old. In fact, she's the youngest breast cancer survivor in Canada.
Not exactly the news her mother Melanie was expecting when she noticed a small lump in her daughter's right breast while bathing her when she was 2. Finally after trying to figure out what was causing Aleisha so much pain, at the age of 3, doctors diagnosed juvenile breast carcinoma, a very rare form of cancer.
"Certainly breast cancer has been reported in children and in adolescents, but it's very rare in prepubrescent girls," says Dr. Thomas Olson, medical director of the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service in Atlanta. Fewer than 5 percent of invasive breast cancers occur in women under age 40, according to The National Institute for Health. About 12.2 percent of women born today will get a breast cancer diagnosis at some time in their lives, according to The National Cancer Institute.
"There are many adult woman who have been tested and know that they carry a breast cancer gene mutation. I think it's important for them to realize that there is no evidence to support the risk of breast cancer in childhood for their daughters," says Dr. Sharon Plon, chief of Texas Children's Cancer Center Genetics Clinic.
Aleisha's physician, Dr. Nancy Down the deputy chief of surgery at North York General Hospital, decided on a radical double mastectomy for the 3- year-old because the tumor had grown quite large she told NBC. She didn't treat Aleisha with chemotherapy or radiation. "Whenever you have a rare case you go with a logical treatment. First you know you need surgery. The question is whether chemotherapy will add to that therapy, but you probably should not give chemotherapy unless you really think it will help," says Olson a pediatric oncologist.
Downs told NBC the advantage to this rare type of cancer it's slow growing, it doesn't spread as aggressively as other types and the prognosis is usually very good. She says Aleisha will have to get reconstructive surgery on her breast once she hits puberty. "If parents are suspicious of something unusual...you have to be your child's best advocate and it's important to follow-up if you are concerned about something in your child that you haven't seen resolved," says Plon.
In November Aleisha was honored as the 2010 Ambassador for Random Act of Kindness (RAK) Day in Cambridge and North Dumfries in Canada where she is from. The day encourages people to "pay it forward" and pay tribute to those who do kindnesses on that day and all yearlong.
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http://www.thesurvivorsclub.org/news-and-articles/aleisha-hunter-survives-breast-cancer-diagnosed-at-age-2-800344612January 21st, 2011
07:08 PM ET
Mastectomy for a preschooler
Aleisha Hunter is... more
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Elizabeth Edwards' will leaves everything to her children
By the CNN Wire Staff
January 6, 2011 2:27 a.m. EST
In Elizabeth Edwards' will, there is no mention of her estranged husband, John Edwards.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Catharine Edwards is named executor of the will
* Elizabeth Edwards died on December 7 after a battle with breast cancer
* Edwards has three children -- Catharine, Emma and John
(CNN) -- Elizabeth Edwards left everything to her children, with no mention of her estranged husband, John Edwards, in her will.
"All of my furniture, furnishings, household goods, jewelry, china, silverware and personal effects and any automobiles ... to be divided among them ..." Edwards says in the document dated December 1.
It names her daughter, 28-year-old Catharine, as the executor of the will.
Elizabeth Edwards died on December 7 after a battle with breast cancer. She was 61.
Edwards has three children -- Catharine, Emma and John. Her son, Wade, died in a 1996 car crash.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after her husband lost his bid for vice president in November 2004.
In 2006, after her initial cancer diagnosis, she wrote "Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers," which chronicled the aftermath of her son's death and her battle with the disease.
In 2008, months after withdrawing from the presidential race, John Edwards admitted that tabloid claims about an extramarital affair with former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter were true.
Eventually, he also admitted to fathering a child with Hunter -- an allegation he initially denied even after conceding the affair.
John Edwards said the affair happened in 2006 while his wife's cancer was in remission. He said he informed his wife at the time and asked for her forgiveness.
In an interview with the Detroit Free Press after her husband admitted to his affair, Elizabeth Edwards said the incident helped her focus on resuming her role as an advocate for the poor and for health care reform. She also said it pushed her to refocus on her role as a mother.
In a September interview on "The Nate Berkus Show," Edwards was asked what she sees when she looks at her estranged husband, John Edwards.
"I see the father of my children, and that's very important to me," she said. "Particularly since I have a terminal disease, this is the person who at some point will take over the primary parenting, and it's important to me that he heal, if he needs to."Elizabeth Edwards' will leaves everything to her children
By the CNN Wire... more
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Women with advanced breast cancer who were treated with Roches Avastin were more likely to develop heart failure than other women, according to an analysis released on Tuesday that raised more concerns about the already troubled drug.
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/reuters/Health/76227Women with advanced breast cancer who were treated with Roches Avastin were more... more
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