How Elizabeth and John Edwards told their kids about Mom’s cancer

Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards and wife, Elizabeth Edwards, opened up to People about Elizabeth’s cancer return and how they found the courage to tell their children. Elizabeth said,

We all sat at the table in the family room. We called them in and said we had something important to say and they were just giggling and laughing. Jack had had a field trip to Whole Foods that day. So it was all of those kinds of regular family things. We had to wait for a calm moment, and John said, ‘I need to tell y’all something. I need to tell you that Mommy’s cancer is back.’ They seemed interested but not depressed by the information. They asked was I going to lose my hair, which delighted them the first time. No, I probably wouldn’t but John explained to them I probably would be getting medicine again.

Elizabeth went on to explain how she was straight forward with her kids, telling them that this cancer will not likely go away and that it could possibly take her life. She said,

We also explained that it wasn’t going to go away this time – and that prompted questions about whether I would die from it. John was honest and said that this cancer can kill. Then he said, ‘Everybody at the table who’s not going to die, raise their hands.’ They understood – or I hope they understood – that we’re all going to die and nobody has any guarantee of how much time they have. The only thing we have control of is how you spend the time, that precious time.

Click below for more from the interview.

John added:

The kids actually responded well. It’s encouraging. It’s hard to know how much they actually grasped, but they seemed to understand.

Elizabeth was originally diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 2004, made it through, and became cancer free. Now, less than 3 years later, the cancer has returned and this time it is in the bone. Elizabeth talked a bit about what the doctors said about her diagnosis. She said,

It doesn’t appear to be in any organs, except that there may be some spots in one of my lungs. What she said about those spots is they won’t biopsy them, and that if that was the only finding, in the absence of the locations in the bone, she would have said come back in six months. In conjunction with this, it means that we do have some additional metastasis, so that will affect the protocol, but not the prognosis.

The couple have not been specific about when Elizabeth will begin treatment or finish her testing. Elizabeth and John have three children, Cate, 25, Emma, 8 and Jack, 6.

Source: PEOPLE

Thanks to CBB reader Mary Beth.