Elizabeth Edwards Writes of Her Battle With Breast Cancer

Elizabeth Edwards at the Democratic convention in Boston on July 28, 2004. (By Stephan Savoia -- Associated Press)

RALEIGH, N.C., July 22 -- When Elizabeth Edwards shaved her head because of hair loss from breast cancer treatment, her husband -- former Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidate John Edwards -- offered to do the same.

So did their young son, Jack, she writes in "Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength From Friends and Strangers," scheduled for publication in September by Broadway Books.

"I convinced them it wouldn't help me to see more bald people in my family," she wrote.

The News & Observer of Raleigh, which obtained uncorrected galley proofs, described the book in Saturday's editions.

Edwards, 57, wrote of her battle with advanced breast cancer last year, which included chemotherapy, surgery and radiation.

"The cancer seems to be gone," she wrote.

Her husband, a former U.S. senator, was at her side throughout months of treatment in early 2005, she said. She has stayed mostly out of the public eye since Edwards and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presidential candidate, lost to the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004.

However, she is scheduled to re-emerge Thursday, when she appears in Des Moines as the headliner at an event hosted by the Polk County Democrats. The Iowa Poll in June found that voters in that state, which holds the first caucus, are more inclined to favor John Edwards than any other Democrat, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, for the 2008 presidential nomination. The couple sold their house in Georgetown and moved back to North Carolina, where they are building a home outside Chapel Hill. The former senator has said he is "strongly considering" another run for the White House and has been criss-crossing the country, talking about how to eradicate poverty.

Elizabeth Edwards was campaigning in Wisconsin 12 days before Election Day when she discovered a large lump. A week later, she was able to visit her doctor in Raleigh, and she told her husband she probably had breast cancer.

Kerry was among the few people who knew before Election Day.

"John Kerry can be a great cheerleader, arm around your shoulder, flattering you and urging you on, and that is what he was that day, a sincere and compassionate cheerleader," she wrote. "We won't ever forget it."

Kerry conceded in Boston, and the Edwardses were driven directly to the city's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where a biopsy provided a definite diagnosis. She began chemotherapy a week later in Washington.

"I don't want to misrepresent this," she wrote, according to the News & Observer. "My reaction was to get ready for battle, but I wasn't always strong. I wasn't even strong all that first day. I had times along this path when I wanted to say I've had enough, I can't keep dealing with the latest side effect, the latest setback, the latest scare. I'd be in great pain or just not be able to do things I'd always done, and I'd say I know I have to kill this dragon, but the killing it is killing me."