Tatiana Schlossberg, the youngest granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, has announced she is battling terminal cancer.
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In an essay that The New Yorker just published, Tatiana, who is the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, revealed she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia shortly after the birth of her and her husband George Moran’s second child, a girl, in May 2024. Her doctors had noticed an imbalance in her white blood cell count and decided to run some tests.
“A normal white-blood-cell count is around four to eleven thousand cells per microliter,” she explained. “Mine was a hundred and thirty-one thousand cells per microliter.”
Her doctor stated the abnormal white blood cell count could have been related to the pregnancy and delivery. They also noted it could be leukemia. She was later diagnosed with “a rare mutation called Inversion 3.”
“I could not be cured by a standard course [of treatment],” she pointed out.
Tatiana then spoke about how she was initially told she would ned months of chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant. “I did not — could not — believe they were talking about me,” she wrote. “I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant.”
Schlossberg also stated that she didn’t feel sick at the time of the diagnosis and called herself “one of the healthiest people” she knew.
“I had a son whom I loved more than anything,” she shared. “And a newborn I needed to take care of.”
Following the birth, Schlossberg spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital before being transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering for a bone-marrow transplant. For chemotherapy, she underwent the treatment at home.
John F. Kennedy’s Granddaughter Revealed Her Doctor Has Given Her a Year Left to Live
Although she was part of a clinical trial for CAR-T-cell therapy, which is a type of immunotherapy against certain blood cancers, Tatiana’s doctor eventually told her she had a year to live.
“My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me,” she wrote. “My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears.”
Schlossberg also wrote about not having enough time to spend with her daughter. “I didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter,” she explained. “I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants.
She then said, “I was gone for almost half of her first year of life.”
Tatiana further spoke about how her daughter may not even know who she is. “I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am,” she continued. “And whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.”
John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter then reflected on what her future plans would have been had she not been diagnosed with the cancer.
“My plan, had I not gotten sick, was to write a book about the oceans,” she shared. “Their destruction, but also the possibilities they offer. During treatment, I learned that one of my chemotherapy drugs, cytarabine, owes its existence to an ocean animal: a sponge that lives in the Caribbean Sea, Tectitethya crypta.”
With the time she has left, Schlossberg is spending time with her loved ones, especially her two children.