Former President Joe Biden, 82, shared his first message since the breaking news about his "aggressive" cancer diagnosis that found it having metastasized to his bones.
"Cancer touches us all," Biden wrote in a heartfelt message Monday on X, sharing a smiling photo while he sits next to a more somber-looking former first lady Jill Biden holding the family cat.
"Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support."
The Biden family has dealt with cancer for decades and the former president and his wife have been active in researching cures through the Cancer Moonshot initiative.
Among those heartfelt messages wishing the Biden's the best came from President Donald Trump, who put politics aside to give some love and support to his bitter political rival that had called him a "threat to democracy."
"Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday after the news spread. "We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery."
Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule were found. He was diagnosed with an "aggressive" case of prostate cancer Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.
"While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management," his office said. "The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians."
Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of 1 to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Biden's office said his score was 9, suggesting his cancer is among the most aggressive.
When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastasized cancer is much harder to treat than localized cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumors and completely root out the disease.
However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in Biden's case, they can be susceptible to treatment that deprives the tumors of hormones.
Biden Vice President Kamala Harris wrote on social media she was keeping him in her family's "hearts and prayers during this time."
"Joe is a fighter — and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership," Harris wrote.
The health of Biden was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president. After a calamitous debate performance in June while seeking reelection, Biden abandoned his bid for a second term just days after Trump "took a bullet for democracy" in a Butler, Pennsylvania, field, roiling the 2024 presidential election campaign.
Harris became the nominee and lost to Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House after a four-year hiatus.
In 2022, Biden made a "cancer moonshot" one of his administration's priorities with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 25 years. The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his older son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015.
His father, when announcing the goal to halve the cancer death rate, said this could be an "American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things."
Jill Biden even joined Newsmax for an interview to address the Cancer Moonshot, a sit-down hailed in mainstream media for bridging political divides.
"Cancer is not one of these issues, it's not a red or blue issue: Cancer affects every American family," she told "Conversations With Nancy Brinker."
"It's unifying. Cancer is such a terrible disease, but it is unifying people. They're all coming together, saying, 'Yes, let's work with one another, and let's reduce the incidents of cancer as we know it, and change the face of cancer.'"
The Bidens' Cancer Moonshot initiative emanated from the grief of their own loss, forcing them to find "purpose" and a way to help people against the cancer disease.
"We didn't want other families to go through what we had gone through," Jill Biden told her longtime friend Nancy Brinker, who is a breast cancer survivor and founder of the Promise Fund of Florida, which seeks to reduce breast and cervical cancer by prevention, testing, and early treatment.
Information from The Associated Press was used to compile this report.