Leroy Sievers, Elizabeth Edwards: Life With Cancer

Published July 9, 2008 at 9:00 AM CDT

Elizabeth Edwards announced at a news conference in March 2007 that her cancer, which had been diagnosed in the final weeks of the 2004 presidential campaign, had returned and was this time incurable.

Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist Leroy Sievers covered wars and ethnic conflicts in more than a dozen countries. He was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2002, had surgery and was clean for four years.

Then doctors found a brain tumor and lung cancer. They told Sievers he had six months to live. That's when Sievers began the fight of — and for — his life. It's a battle he has chronicled for two years through commentaries on Morning Edition, Web podcasts and on his daily My Cancer blog on NPR.org.

Sievers speaks with friend and Talk of the Nation guest host Ted Koppel about his chronicles of that fight. Elizabeth Edwards, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, joins the conversation.

Edwards, wife of former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

You can get a recap of Sievers' live chat with listeners at My Cancer.