The announcement by Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards that his wife, Elizabeth, has suffered an incurable recurrence of breast cancer thrust an intensely personal medical and family matter onto the public stage. The couple handled it with aplomb.

Together, they said that Edwards would continue to campaign, with his wife declaring, "I'm absolutely ready for this. I mean, I don't look sickly, I don't feel sickly. And I'm as ready as any person can be for that." Good for her. Good for them.

Millions of Americans fight cancer every day, forging on to the best of their abilities. While the death toll is still far too high, many sufferers are benefiting from life-extending therapies that were unimaginable just a decade ago. That Elizabeth Edwards is determined to become one in the midst of a presidential campaign speaks volumes about how far the country has come in a short time.

When first lady Betty Ford openly discussed her mastectomy in 1974, she gave millions of women the courage to talk about their own battles with the deadly disease, replacing speculation with information and fear with fact. Elizabeth Edwards has charted a similar course. Diagnosed at the end of the 2004 presidential campaign, she wrote of her illness in a best-selling book and became a symbol of cancer survival.

Now, she will be an object lesson in dealing with Stage 4, metastatic cancer. And her progress will surely be of intense interest to the 2 million American women who have been treated for breast cancer, to the 178,000 likely to be diagnosed and the 41,000 expected to die from it this year alone.

Rather crassly, some on the Republican right, such as Rush Limbaugh, leaped to speculating about whether a sympathy vote would boost Edwards' campaign. Others engaged in presumptuous second-guessing.

"Wouldn't you think this is a time when they would want to be home together savoring every moment that they've got?" asked a Boston University journalism professor who had covered the couple for the Los Angeles Times in 2004 and who ventured that by suspending his campaign, Edwards "could have looked like a hero." Ugh.

Doctors say a relapse of the kind suffered by Elizabeth Edwards fits a typical pattern, and that the malignant cells in her rib — also, perhaps, in her lung — are terminal, but not untreatable. She may have as little as five years but could survive as long as 20. Her cancer might be controllable with pills alone, with minimal side effects. Or she might need debilitating radiation and chemo.

With each step in her treatment, her doctors will learn more about managing her disease — and so will innumerable cancer patients. She will have to undergo therapies for the rest of her life, perhaps as first lady.

Whatever her husband's political fortunes, may she do so with the same brave face and optimistic attitude she has evidenced so far.