Elizabeth Edwards says the admission by her husband, John Edwards, of an affair has helped her focus on the importance of her children and issues like health reform as she goes through "an ongoing process of finding your feet again."

"There's a lot of adjustment to make," the wife of the former Democratic presidential candidate said in an exclusive interview with the Free Press this week. "When you mention trust, that's probably the most difficult hurdle."

Edwards, who is being treated for breast cancer, also discussed motherhood and health in women's busy lives in the 45-minute telephone interview, disclosing that she once went eight years without a mammogram.

Emerging now from five weeks of near-silence since news of her husband's affair became public, Edwards will visit Detroit on Oct. 15 to talk about coping with life's setbacks, including the loss of her son Wade at age 16 in an auto accident and her 2004 diagnosis of cancer, which recurred last year. Those issues frame the themes of "Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers," her 2006 book, updated last year (Broadway Books, $14.95).