Tatiana Schlossberg reveals terminal leukemia fight in moving essay

Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline Kennedy, has revealed her terminal leukemia diagnosis in a deeply personal essay, reflecting on motherhood, memory, and a year and a half of grueling treatment.

In a letter published by The New Yorker, Schlossberg recounted how her illness was discovered just hours after giving birth to her second child in May 2024. What first appeared to be a routine blood test quickly escalated into a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation, altering her life “in an instant.”

She detailed months spent in hospitals, rounds of chemotherapy, two bone-marrow transplants, participation in clinical trials, and long stretches of separation from her newborn daughter and young son. Throughout the ordeal, she said she clung to humor, the compassion of nurses, and the constant presence of her husband and family.

Schlossberg also described the emotional weight of facing death while watching her children grow. “My kids’ faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids,” she wrote, admitting her fear that her daughter may never remember who she was.

Her letter also touched on the political tensions within her family as her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., rose to national prominence and later became U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Schlossberg said his attacks on medical science, vaccines, and federal research funding directly threatened the systems keeping her alive.

A journalist and environmental writer, Schlossberg said she mourns the future she will not see — books unwritten, oceans unprotected, birthdays missed. Yet her letter ends not in resignation but in quiet persistence. With her remaining time, she wrote, she is choosing to live inside every memory she can still make.