Sometimes, illnesses are easy to define in length. When you have a cold, for instance, you're all better once your nose stops running. When you have a broken arm, it's better once the cast comes off. But when you have cancer, are you ever really 'cured'? Is there a point where you stop being a cancer patient and go back your normal life, claiming you're 'all better now'? Is it that simple?

Think about this: Some insurance companies don't consider someone cured until they've been cancer-free for 10 years. Ten years is a long time, and I doubt most survivors wait that long to celebrate their victory. This survivor, for instance, is celebrating five years of being cancer-free, and is looking forward to calling herself cured. But her insurance company won't call her cured for another five years, and a recent statistic has shown that more than half of breast cancer survivors have a recurrence more than five years after they were first diagnosed.

So is cancer a life-long weight you have to bear? Can you be definitively cured? Or is it not even worth worrying about, when there's a life to be lived and love to be shared?

Democratic presidential candidate and former North Carolina senator John Edwards missed an Iowa campaign event on Tuesday so he could be with his wife as she prepared for a medical appointment the following morning.

Elizabeth Edwards, diagnosed with breast cancer just before the 2004 election, when her husband ran for vice president, has survived chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation and has written a book -- Saving Graces -- about her entire journey.

Edwards' campaign crew has insisted Wednesday's appointment was a routine follow-up to a medical visit his wife had the day before and that Elizabeth Edwards, 57, has been living cancer-free.

Today at noon, Edwards will hold a press conference about his wife's health and how it may -- or may not -- affect his candidacy.

Bruins rookie Phil Kessel is surviving testicular cancer. And the 19-year-old former University of Minnesota player, drafted in the first round this year, is talking about his shocking diagnosis and the surgery from which he is currently recovering.

Kessel, who is expected to rest for two weeks before returning to the ice, found a lump in his testicle and went immediately to his team internist, Dr. David Judge. Judge examined him, referred him for an ultrasound, and learned with Kessel that the lump was in fact cancer -- embryonal testicular cancer.

Both Judge and Kessel are happy to report that the cancer was localized to the right testicle -- which was removed during surgery -- and had not spread. Kessel, therefore, has a very low liklihood of recurrence.

Kessel, who has five goals and four assists in 27 games this season, says about his diagnosis, "I couldn't believe it. It was tough. I had a hard time with it."

Kessel thinks cancer will help him gain perspective on life. And he plans to speak out about his experience so others may benefit.

"If you're not feeling well go get checked out and make sure you're all right," he says. Getting checked out is what saved him -- and he hopes others will follow suit.

Kessel is the second Boston athlete to be diagnosed with cancer this year. Red Sox left-hander Jon Lester was diagnosed with lymphoma in August. With chemotherapy behind him, he is currently cancer-free. And so is Kessel.

Stage IIIB breast cancer describes invasive breast cancer in which a tumor of any size has spread to the breast skin, chest wall, or internal mammary lymph nodes. It also includes inflammatory breast cancer, a very uncommon but very serious, aggressive type of breast cancer.

Patients diagnosed with Stage IIIB breast cancer usually will receive chemotherapy before surgery and then possibly radiation, hormonal therapy, and more chemotherapy after surgery.

Those who receive a complete disappearance of all detectable cancer from receiving the chemotherapy before surgery have a better survival rate than those who have evidence of cancer after the neoadjuvant treatments. Researchers want to try and improve survival for those who have not had a complete response to the treatments before surgery.

Researchers from Italy conducted a trial to evaluate the effects of additional chemotherapy after surgery to see if this will give these patients a better chance at cancer free survival.

The participants were followed for over six years:

• Cancer free survival was 92 percent among patients who had a complete response from neoadjuvant treatment.
• Patients that still had detectable cancer after neoadjuvant treatment had only a 53 percent cancer free survival.
• Those patients that did not have a complete response after neoadjuvant therapy but went on to have more chemotherapy after surgery had 100 percent cancer free survival.

The researchers added that the trial was small but it appears that additional chemotherapy added after surgery could provide a significant survival benefit.

Australian newspapers are reporting that a woman in Britain is pregnant with the first designer baby selected to prevent an inherited cancer. The mother-to-be, who has not been named, conceived after receiving treatment from Paul Serhal, of University College Hospital, London. In Britain, Dr. Serhal pioneered the use of this procedure to detect inherited cancers.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority awarded him licenses to screen for retinoblastoma and a form of colon cancer. Using a genetic-screening technology that will prevent the mother from passing on a hereditary form of eye cancer to her children, doctors removed cells and tested them for the cancer gene, and only unaffected embryos were transferred to her womb. There is heated debate over the ethics of this practice. How do you feel about designer babies?

Related post: Disease-free designer babies embryo selection.