Tatiana Schlossberg, the 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 magazine, The 35-year-old environmental journalist wrote that her illness was discovered in May 2024 after she gave birth to her daughter. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation known as Inversion 3 and underwent several courses of treatment, including chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.
Schlossberg – daughter from former US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President and Edwin Schlossberg. They live in New York.
In her essay, Schlossberg acknowledged that her terminal illness adds to the string of tragedies that have befallen the famous political family. Her Grandpa was killed in Dallas in 1963. Nearly five years later, his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was mortally wounded in Los Angeles after delivering a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel after winning the California primary. Her 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, to protect my mother and never upset her or make her angry,” Schlossberg wrote.
“Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to the life of our family, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.”
She wrote that her diagnosis was overwhelming. She had just turned 34, was not feeling ill and was physically active, including swimming a mile the day before she gave birth to her second child at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
After giving birth, her doctor became alarmed by her high white blood cell count.
At first, medical professionals believed the test result might be related to her pregnancy. However, doctors soon concluded that she had myeloid leukemia, a disease that is most often seen in older patients. She ended up spending several weeks in the hospital.
“Every doctor I visited asked me if I had spent much time at Ground Zero, given how common blood cancer is among the first responders“- wrote Schlossberg. – “I was in New York on September 11th, in the sixth grade, but did not visit this place until several years later.
She underwent various courses of treatment. Her older sister Rose was one of the bone marrow donors.
In the article, Schlossberg mentioned Kennedy family dilemma regarding the controversial positions of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., her mother's cousin. Schlossberg wrote that while she was in the hospital in mid-2024, Kennedy suspended his long-term presidential campaign to support then-Republican nominee President Trump.
Trump continued to call Kennedy to his office as Secretary of the U.S. 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 steps, Trump demanded that public money be cut from Columbia University, where she works. husband George Moran.
“Columbia University doctors and scientists, including George, did not know whether they would be able to continue their research or even find work,” she wrote. “Suddenly the health care system I relied on felt strained and shaky.”
On Saturday, her brother Jack Schlossberg, who recently announced his candidacy for Congress from a New York district, shared on Instagram link to her New Yorker essay “Battle with My Blood.”
He added: “Life is short – let it be torn.”
