Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of JFK, reveals terminal cancer diagnosis
Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, is battling a rare form of leukemia and may have less than a year to live.
In an essay published Saturday in the New Yorker, the 35-year-old environmental journalist writes that her illness was discovered in May 2024 after giving birth to her daughter. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation known as Inversion 3 and underwent several treatments, including chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants.
Schlossberg is the daughter of former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the former president, and Edwin Schlossberg. They live in New York.
In his essay, Schlossberg acknowledges that his terminal illness adds to a series of tragedies that have befallen the famous political family. His grandfather was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Nearly five years later, his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was fatally shot in Los Angeles after giving a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel following his victory in the California presidential primary. His uncle, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in 1999 when his small plane crashed.
“All my life I have tried to be good, to be a good student, a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never upset or make her angry,” Schlossberg wrote.
“Now I have added new tragedy to his life, to our family’s life, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.”
She wrote that her diagnosis was astonishing. She had just turned 34, did not feel sick and was physically active, including swimming a mile a day before giving birth to her second child at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
After giving birth, her doctor was alarmed by her high white blood cell count.
At first, medical professionals thought the test result might be related to her pregnancy. However, doctors quickly concluded that she was suffering from myeloid leukemia, a disease usually seen in older patients. She ended up spending weeks in the hospital.
“Every doctor I consulted asked me if I had spent much time at Ground Zero, given the frequency of blood cancers among first responders,” Schlossberg wrote. “I was in New York on 9/11, in sixth grade, but didn’t visit the site until years later.”
She underwent various treatments. His older sister, Rose, was one of his bone marrow donors.
In the article, Schlossberg mentions the Kennedy family’s dilemma over controversial positions taken by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his mother’s cousin. Schlossberg wrote that while in the hospital in mid-2024, Kennedy suspended her long-running presidential campaign to throw her weight behind then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Trump then named Kennedy to his cabinet as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In one of his first moves, Trump demanded a reduction in public funds allocated to Columbia University, which employs her husband, George Moran.
“Doctors and scientists at Columbia, including George, did not know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have a job,” she wrote. “Suddenly, the health system I was counting on felt strained, fragile. »
On Saturday, his brother Jack Schlossberg, who recently announced his candidacy for Congress in a New York district, shared on Instagram a link to his New Yorker essay, “A Battle with My Blood.”
He added: “Life is short – let it be torn apart. »
