Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of JFK, says she has a rare terminal cancer : NPR

Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, says she has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

Schlossberg is a journalist and writer who writes about the environment.

She made her diagnosis public in an essay titled “Battle with My Blood,” published in the magazine website New Yorker Saturday is the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather's murder.

In the article, Schlossberg says that despite fighting the disease for more than a year, her treatment did not lead to long-term remission and says the disease will kill her.

Schlossberg – daughter Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg. She is 35 years old, married and has two children. Here's what you need to know about the cancer called acute myeloid leukemia, and what else Schlossberg says in his essay.

What kind of disease is this?

Acute myeloid leukemia is a blood cancer. The form that Schlossberg was diagnosed with is known as acute myeloid leukemia with inversion 3, a rare mutation that is most often seen in older patients. Schlossberg learned of her diagnosis at just 34 years old.

“I would say that acute myeloid leukemia with inversion 3 is one that most of us who treat leukemia look at as probably one of the most aggressive mutations,” says Dr. Clark Alsfeld, a hematologist-oncologist at Ochsner MD Anderson Cancer Center in New Orleans who specializes in leukemia and other myeloid malignancies. He is also an expert in stem cell transplantation, which was part of Schlossberg's treatment.

“Achieving remission is very, very difficult, the long-term prognosis is unfortunately very short-term, and the survival rates are much lower than we see with other types of acute myeloid leukemia,” Alsfeld says.

Very little is known about what causes the disease or what may increase the risk of contracting it, Alsfeld said. Schlossberg writes that she did not feel ill, and the disease was discovered through blood tests on the day she gave birth to her second child. According to her, the day before she swam a mile in the pool.

“The problem we have with acute myeloid leukemia is that patients keep asking, ‘How long has this been around?’ before it was discovered,” he says. “I usually tell them, probably not for very long. We don't think many of these leukemias that we have last for years and years and years before they develop or before they are detected.”

Schlossberg's rebuke of RFK Jr.

In the essay, Schlossberg also writes about the physical and emotional pain caused by the disease and the anguish of seeing her loved ones share that pain.

But the essay is not only personal. Schlossberg also leveled a scathing attack on her once-ousted cousin, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“At the time of my treatment, he was on the national stage: he had previously been a Democrat but had run for president as an independent,” Schlossberg writes. “But mostly because of the shame for me and the rest of my family.”

She describes Kennedy's history of vaccine skepticism, medical inexperience and antipathy toward medical research funding as her biggest challenges.

“Suddenly, the health care system I relied on felt strained and shaky,” she writes.

Alsfeld says stories like Schlossberg's can make a difference.

“Materials like this are incredibly important because they help get it out to a lot of people who might hear 'acute myeloid leukemia' and just think of a TV commercial or something, but not be able to make it as sincere as this article and make it very real to people,” he says.

Alsfeld hopes the paper will spur new interest in funding medical research in the wake of the Trump administration's move to cut funding. federal research grants this year.