Best wishes to Elizabeth Edwards and her family during the long days ahead.

In an interview earlier this year, while Mr. Edwards was still a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Elizabeth Edwards said that as a first lady, issues that she would promote would include breast cancer awareness and efforts to press insurance companies to pay for more frequent exams.

"I care about preventive medicine, I care very deeply about it," Mrs. Edwards said then. "I think if a hypothetical insurance company can say we can only pay for mammograms for women over 50 every three years, I would want to use my role to complain to them that this is irresponsible behavior. Women over 50 need an annual mammogram."