Edwards family returns to Raleigh, friend says

Knight Ridder ^ | 11/5

[ambrose]

Posted on Fri, Nov. 05, 2004

Edwards family returns to Raleigh, friend says

BY TIM FUNK

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Hoping to spend time with friends after a week of dispiriting news, Sen. John Edwards and wife Elizabeth flew home to Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, according to a close friend of the family.

Ellan Maynard of Raleigh, who has known Elizabeth Edwards for more than a decade, also said the senator's wife - diagnosed Wednesday with breast cancer - spent most of Friday meeting with doctors and is expected to undergo surgery at a Washington hospital.

"(It'll) probably (be) a lumpectomy," in which only the lump is removed, Maynard said Friday. "The question is where to have it. They're looking at a couple of hospitals in Washington, because John has to be there and the kids are in school there."

Elizabeth Edwards' diagnosis came just hours after an emotional ending of the presidential campaign at Boston's Faneuil Hall, during which Sen. John Kerry and his running mate, North Carolina senator Edwards, conceded the election to President Bush.

On Friday, the Edwardses made a last-minute decision to "come back (home) to spend time with friends," Maynard said. "I got an e-mail from one of John's Senate aides that read, `They were looking for friends, not frowns.'"

Maynard said she was surprised Thursday morning when Elizabeth Edwards gave her the news about the diagnosis. Maynard cried, but said that Edwards was strong.

"She's a real problem solver," her friend said. "I'm not worried for her life. I just hate that it happened."

Edwards discovered the lump while she was campaigning for Kerry and her husband, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate. She met with her doctor in Raleigh last Friday. He told her to get a biopsy, which she did the following Wednesday in Boston - after several days of campaigning in the battleground states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Iowa. The senator, campaigning elsewhere, cut some of his speeches short so he could be in more frequent telephone contact with her.

She had a needle biopsy at Massachusetts General Hospital. The diagnosis: invasive ductal cancer, the most common form of breast cancer. The current five-year survival rate for breast cancer is 87 percent.

During the presidential campaign, Elizabeth Edwards won a national following as a woman and mother who seemed down-to-earth and authentic. A former bankruptcy attorney and her husband's top adviser, she and the senator have three children: Cate, 22, Emma Claire, 6, and Jack, 4.

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[Torie]

Horrible bad luck for Mrs. Edwards. Sad. Of the four spouses on the Dem ticket, she was the one class act.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Prayers lifted for Elizabeth and family.

[pypo]

Why would someone post this on FR? You may as well post that Gunga Din is having a proctoscopy. Like, what's it to us?

[Roberts]

Prayers going out to her and the family.

[MKM1960]

didn't you forget the sarcasm tag?

[txkev]

As much as I disagreed with her and her husband's politics, I wish her the absolute best.

[sinkspur]

Would you, as a surgeon, want John Edwards hanging over your shoulder?

[Death and Taxes]

Politics aside. Best wishes to Mrs. Edwards.

[sinkspur]

Horrible bad luck for Mrs. Edwards. Sad. Of the four spouses on the Dem ticket, she was the one class act.

I pray for her health, but her remark about Mary and Lynne Cheney was the single most classless remark made during the campaign.

[Libloather]

Edwards family returns to Raleigh, friend says

Doesn't he live at the beach now?

[latina4dubya]

Of the four spouses on the Dem ticket, she was the one class act.

class act? i feel bad for her and pray she survives--especially for her children's sake... but please... false flattery is not necessary...

[demkicker]

She had a needle biopsy at Massachusetts General Hospital. The diagnosis: invasive ductal cancer, the most common form of breast cancer. The current five-year survival rate for breast cancer is 87 percent.

I can't help but think of the irony of this Edwards family situation. John Edwards is actually being put in the predicament of needing medical help for his wife and mother of his children when he has earned his fortune suing healthcare givers. He's used to making his living off of the very people he is hoping to save his wife's life.

Is that delicious or what?

[Torie]

I don't recall that remark. What was it? The fair game remark was made by that classless and pathetic Cahill women. Estrich certainly embarrassed herself on election day. Why did she do it? Odd.

[Miss Behave]

"I pray for her health, but her remark about Mary and Lynne Cheney was the single most classless remark made during the campaign."

I Couldn't agree more. Also disturbing and disgusting was her remark that there would not be riots if her husband and Kerry were elected. She displays a very similar personality type as her husband does.

[sinkspur]

Liz Edwards said that Lynne Cheney must be in denial about her lesbian daughter, and "that is very sad."

It was demeaning.

[kenth]

So, if she was meeting with doctors most of the day, does this mean that the DUers were fawning over a fake today?

[PGalt]

I pray for her health, but her remark about Mary and Lynne Cheney was the single most classless remark made during the campaign.

Well stated

[LdSentinal]

link

[Torie]

Well that was indeed a stupid remark. Most parents would object to the sexual preferences or activities of their children being invoked into a campaign gratuitously. The relevance of it is exactly zero, and that is indeed classless and intrusive.