Nov. 22 (UPI) — Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg’s daughter and the late President John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter, has announced she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, with a rare mutation, in 2024.
“My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half. They have held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness in order to protect me from it,” the 35-year-old environmental journalist and mother of two young children wrote in an essay for the New Yorker magazine published Saturday.
“This has been a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day. For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
She described in detail how she was shocked to be diagnosed when her blood work raised alarms after the birth of her second child last year.
Tatiana, who said she felt healthy and strong at the time, explained all of the treatments she ultimately had to undergo and how the doctor supervising her latest clinical trial cautiously said he might be able to keep her alive for another year at the most.
Left to right, Siblings Rose Schlossberg, Tatiana and John Schlossberg pose for photographers as they arrive for the 2016 Kennedy Center Honors gala in Washington, D.C. File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI
Tatiana is also the daughter of artist and author Edwin Schlossberg and the older sister of Jack Schlossberg, who announced earlier this month he is running for the House seat being vacated by longtime Rep. Jerry Nadler.
She is the cousin of Robert Kennedy Jr., who serves as U.S. President Donald Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, as well.
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, speaks at the Democratic National Convention at the Pepsi Center in Denver in 2008. File Photo by Alexis C. Glenn/UPI
In her essay, she criticized Kennedy, calling him an “embarrassment” to his family for his views and policies regarding vaccines, insurance and funding for research.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy speaks during a cabinet meeting held by President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC on April 30. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI