In an announcement Friday, Elizabeth Edwards said that her cancer is in stage four.
Stage four diagnosis is serious. Stage four breast cancer is the worst you can get.
Linda Kiraly was diagnosed between stages one and two.
"No matter what stage you are, when you hear the diagnosis, it's scary," said Kiraly.
Kiraly said that any diagnosis of cancer comes with an emotional burden and tough treatments.
"It's grueling. It makes you feel lousy. You don't know how lousy until its all over," explained Kiraly.
The different stages of cancer depend on size and location.
Doctors said stage one cancer involves a tumor about the size of a grape.
Stage two is a tumor about golf ball size. Stage three is around the size of an orange, or with lymph nodes involved.
Stage four means the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.
"Most cancers diagnosed are staged one or two," said Chesapeake breast surgeon, Dr. Catherine Hayward.
Hayward said the lower the stage, the higher the cure rate.
There is no cure for stage four, but Hayward said there is treatment.
"The goal is to make it a chronic illness," explained Hayward.
She said chemotherapy and other drugs buy patients time.
"What we've bought in the past decade is certainly a lot of information, a lot of knowledge and additional medicines. So as time goes on, yeah, the hope would be that we can improve on what we have now," Hayward said.
Until there's a cure, even an 11-year-survivor, like Linda Kiraly said, you are never truly cancer free.
"In your mind you're always thinking, 'Oh that backache I had, could that be a reoccurrence?'"
Both Elizabeth Edwards and Linda Kiraly said that getting support is important for patients and survivors.
Kiraly is a volunteer coordinator at Lee's Friends, a cancer support organization in Norfolk.
For more information on Lee's Friends and cancer, click on "Links in the News" at wavy.com.