Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of slain President John F. Kennedy, is battling a rare form of leukemia and may have less than a year to live.<\/p>\n
In an essay published Saturday in the New Yorker,<\/a> the 35-year-old environmental journalist wrote 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 has undergone several treatments, including chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants.<\/p>\n Schlossberg is a daughter<\/a> of former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, <\/a>the former president\u2019s daughter, and Edwin Schlossberg. They live in New York.<\/p>\n In her essay, Schlossberg acknowledged that her terminal illness adds to a string of tragedies that has befallen the famous political family. Her grandfather was assassinated in Dallas<\/a> in 1963. Nearly five years later, his brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was fatally shot in Los Angeles<\/a> after giving a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel following his California presidential primary win. Her uncle, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in 1999 when his small plane crashed.<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cFor 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,\u201d Schlossberg wrote. <\/p>\n \u201cNow I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family\u2019s life, and there\u2019s nothing I can do to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n She wrote her diagnosis was stunning. She had just turned 34, didn\u2019t feel sick and was physically active, including swimming a mile one day before she gave birth to her second child at Columbia-Presbyterian hospital in New York. <\/p>\n After the delivery, her doctor became alarmed by her high white blood cell count.<\/p>\n At first, medical professionals figured the test result might be tied to her pregnancy. However, doctors soon concluded she had myeloid leukemia, a condition mostly observed in older patients. She ended up spending weeks in the hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery doctor I saw asked me if I had spent a lot of time at Ground Zero, given how common blood cancers are among first responders,\u201d<\/a> Schlossberg wrote. \u201cI was in New York on 9\/11, in the sixth grade, but I didn\u2019t visit the site until years later.\u201d<\/p>\n She has endured various treatments. Her older sister, Rose, was one of her bone marrow donors. <\/p>\n In the article, Schlossberg mentioned the Kennedy family\u2019s dilemma<\/a> over controversial positions taken by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., her mother\u2019s cousin. Schlossberg wrote that while she was in the hospital in mid-2024, Kennedy suspended his long-shot campaign for president to throw his weight behind then-Republican candidate Donald Trump. <\/p>\n Trump went on to name Kennedy to his Cabinet<\/a> as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n In one of his early moves, Trump demanded a cut in government money to Columbia University, which employs her husband, George Moran.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDoctors and scientists at Columbia, including George, didn\u2019t know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have jobs,\u201d she wrote. \u201cSuddenly, the health-care system on which I relied felt strained, shaky.\u201d<\/p>\n On Saturday, her brother Jack Schlossberg, who recently announced his bid for Congress in a New York district, shared on Instagram a <\/a>link to her New Yorker essay, \u201cA Battle with My Blood.\u201d <\/p>\n He added: \u201cLife is short \u2014 let it rip.\u201d<\/p>\n