Sasse announced<\/a> in a post that he was diagnosed with a deadly form of advanced pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n\u201cLast week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die,\u201d Sasse posted. \u201cDeath is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sasse was elected to the US Senate in 2015 and represented the state of Nebraska until he resigned to become president of UF in February 2023. <\/p>\n
He resigned his position at the university in July 2024, citing his wife\u2019s health concerns. Sasse\u2019s full social media post is below:<\/p>\n
\u201cFriends-<\/p>\n
This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I\u2019ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die. <\/p>\n
Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it\u2019s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too \u2014 we all do. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, \u201cSure, you\u2019re on the clock, but we\u2019re all on the clock.\u201d Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all. <\/p>\n
Still, I\u2019ve got less time than I\u2019d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can\u2019t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we\u2019d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer \u2014 and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she\u2019s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she\u2019s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we\u2019ve been driving off-book for six years \u2014 but now we\u2019ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn\u2019t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s not a good time to tell your peeps you\u2019re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer \u2014 but the season of advent isn\u2019t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what\u2019s to come. <\/p>\n
Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope \u2014 often we lazily say \u201chope\u201d when what we mean is \u201coptimism.\u201d To be clear, optimism is great, and it\u2019s absolutely necessary, but it\u2019s insufficient. It\u2019s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you\u2019re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they\u2019re gonna bury their son. <\/p>\n
A well-lived life demands more reality \u2014 stiffer stuff. That\u2019s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope \u2014 often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears. <\/p>\n
Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer \u2014 a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city \u2014 with foundations and without cancer \u2014 is not yet. <\/p>\n
Remembering Isaiah\u2019s prophecies of what\u2019s to come doesn\u2019t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity\u2019s perspective: \u201cWhen we\u2019ve been there 10,000 years\u2026We\u2019ve no less days to sing God\u2019s praise.\u201d <\/p>\n
I\u2019ll have more to say. I\u2019m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God\u2019s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren\u2019t the same \u2014 the process of dying is still something to be lived. We\u2019re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I\u2019ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.<\/p>\n
But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: \u201cThe people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned\u2026.For to us a son is given\u201d (Isaiah 9). <\/p>\n
With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,Ben \u2014 and the Sasses<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WCJB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – Former US senator and University of Florida president Ben Sasse shared his cancer diagnosis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27512,28,2530,30,29,2496,10010,50076,4214,40610,2511,2512],"class_list":["post-93867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-ben-sasse","tag-florida","tag-florida-gators","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gainesville","tag-nebraska","tag-sasse","tag-senate","tag-senator","tag-uf","tag-university-of-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}