Denial (from Kuebler Ross) is perhaps the most difficult step in accepting your mortality, then anger. She will resent his not being there for this process. A freind was diagnosed with lung cancer, six weeks later he's gone. He accepted it quickly and was able to pull together finances and other matters so his wife wasn't overwhelmed when the end came.
So yeah it would help for him to be there because she may be dead soon.
Don't underestimate the power of denial. There is bone cancer and there is bone cancer. If they caught hers in the early stages of metastsing then there is a liklihood that it can be kept stable for a number of years. It has to do with how many bones it is in and to what extent. My mother was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in January with mets to the spine. Radiation killed the spine tumor very quickly. Chemo is now at work on the lung tumor. Her doctor is optomistic that her cancer can be stablaized and she has some good life to live yet. She's not ready to wait to die and all I'm saying is that if Elizabeth Edwards isn't, that's her call, not ours. You cope the best way you can and for some people that's to keep things as normal as possible for as long as possible.
Kay Yow is one of my heroes. As the head basketball coach for the NC State women's team, she is taking her team to the Sweet 16 this weekend despite undergoing chemo and biologic treatments for advanced breast cancer. This woman had the choice of giving up and waiting to die, or fighting on and teaching young women about the power of faith and perserverence. Last fall you might have told her to stop living because she'd be dead in a year. But she looked at that year and said, I might as well have something to show for it. I'll chose the fighting spirits of the Kay Yows (and yes, Elizabeth Edwards) any day over the folks who believe that all is lost from the moment they hear the diagnosis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/sports/ncaabasketball/18yow.html?_r=1&oref=slogin