Tatiana Schlossberg (Caroline Kennedy's daughter) her terminal cancer at 34

[Anonymous]

Such sad news. Two small children left without the mother who loved them with all her heart. What a brave woman to share her story with such courage and painful honesty.

[Anonymous]

Heartbreaking

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/us/politics/tatiana-schlossberg-dead.html

She was never able to fully care for her daughter — to feed, diaper or bathe her — because of the risk of infection, and her treatments had kept her away from home for nearly half of her daughter’s first year of life.

“I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am,” Ms. Schlossberg wrote, “and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.”

[Anonymous]

Anyone who can't feel and acknowledge this tragedy has zero emotions or simply is cold blooded. Doesn't matter who it is, the fact it is her makes it sadder for her family but esp her mom. No matter, to be 35 and such a spirit and loss to cancer with so much suffering trying to get treatments with young kids defines the word tragedy.
People can be so ugly and mean,

Her article was amazing and her family seems amazing too. She was well loved and for good reasons. To lose her mother, father, brother and child - poor Caroline.

[Anonymous]

Just awful. 😢

[Anonymous]

What would have happened had she just said no to treatment? How long would she have lasted? The treatment sounded brutal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heartbreaking

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/us/politics/tatiana-schlossberg-dead.html

She was never able to fully care for her daughter — to feed, diaper or bathe her — because of the risk of infection, and her treatments had kept her away from home for nearly half of her daughter’s first year of life.

“I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am,” Ms. Schlossberg wrote, “and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.”

Dead at 35 with two kids aged 3 and below. Heartbreaking. God bless her kids and may she RIP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heartbreaking

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/us/politics/tatiana-schlossberg-dead.html

She was never able to fully care for her daughter — to feed, diaper or bathe her — because of the risk of infection, and her treatments had kept her away from home for nearly half of her daughter’s first year of life.

“I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am,” Ms. Schlossberg wrote, “and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.”

Just awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would have happened had she just said no to treatment? How long would she have lasted? The treatment sounded brutal.

I wonder that too. Did the treatment make everything worse? What would have happened if she didn't do anything?

Another (awful) what if thought - did being pregnant with her daughter trigger the cancer? Pregnancy hormones can wreck havoc on your body. I assume nothing came up in blood works she had taken before being pregnant. Major coincidence to develop cancer while pregnant or did the hormones trigger this bad case of cancer?

[Anonymous]

So sad to see this news. I was really hoping for a miracle for her, and thought she might at least have more months. Those poor kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would have happened had she just said no to treatment? How long would she have lasted? The treatment sounded brutal.

The treatment most certainly extended her life (though one could argue that the quality of life during treatment was so low - ie, unable to be around or care for her children - that it was a wash). But yeah the chemo and blood transfusions absolutely allowed her to survive longer than she would have.

Had she not nuked the cancer with the chemo, the leukemia would’ve exploded throughout her body and killed her pretty quickly.

She might’ve preferred that, though, to the brutal treatment. But especially if you have kids, you do everything you can to stay on this earth as long as you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would have happened had she just said no to treatment? How long would she have lasted? The treatment sounded brutal.

I wonder that too. Did the treatment make everything worse? What would have happened if she didn't do anything?

Another (awful) what if thought - did being pregnant with her daughter trigger the cancer? Pregnancy hormones can wreck havoc on your body. I assume nothing came up in blood works she had taken before being pregnant. Major coincidence to develop cancer while pregnant or did the hormones trigger this bad case of cancer?

No, pregnancy doesn’t trigger AML and it’s relatively rare to develop AML in your thirties (though I believe the rates are rising, which is scary). It’s possible that she wrote off her cancer symptoms (if she had any… stuff like fatigue…) as pregnancy symptoms. Which is why it’s great they found it when she gave birth, so they could start treatment right away.

Pregnancy hormones don’t appear to influence AML like they do with breast cancer, I believe. (Though there’s still a lot they don’t know about hormonal links with cancer)

[Anonymous]

So sad for her and her family.

It's also another example of how wealth and/or having connections cannot save you from health problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would have happened had she just said no to treatment? How long would she have lasted? The treatment sounded brutal.

I wonder that too. Did the treatment make everything worse? What would have happened if she didn't do anything?

Another (awful) what if thought - did being pregnant with her daughter trigger the cancer? Pregnancy hormones can wreck havoc on your body. I assume nothing came up in blood works she had taken before being pregnant. Major coincidence to develop cancer while pregnant or did the hormones trigger this bad case of cancer?

No, pregnancy doesn’t trigger AML and it’s relatively rare to develop AML in your thirties (though I believe the rates are rising, which is scary). It’s possible that she wrote off her cancer symptoms (if she had any… stuff like fatigue…) as pregnancy symptoms. Which is why it’s great they found it when she gave birth, so they could start treatment right away.

Pregnancy hormones don’t appear to influence AML like they do with breast cancer, I believe. (Though there’s still a lot they don’t know about hormonal links with cancer)

AML by itself doesn’t have such a dire prognosis when diagnosed under 40. Tatiana Schlossberg could have lived for years with the best treatments she would have undoubtedly had access to. She was extremely unlucky to have the inversion 3 mutation which is a very rare subset and resistant to treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would have happened had she just said no to treatment? How long would she have lasted? The treatment sounded brutal.

I wonder that too. Did the treatment make everything worse? What would have happened if she didn't do anything?

Another (awful) what if thought - did being pregnant with her daughter trigger the cancer? Pregnancy hormones can wreck havoc on your body. I assume nothing came up in blood works she had taken before being pregnant. Major coincidence to develop cancer while pregnant or did the hormones trigger this bad case of cancer?

No, pregnancy doesn’t trigger AML and it’s relatively rare to develop AML in your thirties (though I believe the rates are rising, which is scary). It’s possible that she wrote off her cancer symptoms (if she had any… stuff like fatigue…) as pregnancy symptoms. Which is why it’s great they found it when she gave birth, so they could start treatment right away.

Pregnancy hormones don’t appear to influence AML like they do with breast cancer, I believe. (Though there’s still a lot they don’t know about hormonal links with cancer)

AML by itself doesn’t have such a dire prognosis when diagnosed under 40. Tatiana Schlossberg could have lived for years with the best treatments she would have undoubtedly had access to. She was extremely unlucky to have the inversion 3 mutation which is a very rare subset and resistant to treatment.

While all “AML” results in the uncontrolled overgrowth of immature myeloid cells that take over the bone marrow, it’s not quite accurate that patients under the age of 40 have a non-dire prognosis. That is because AML is a very heterogeneous disease, and is defined by numerous different cytogenetic alterations (chunks of chromosomes that are rearranged or deleted) and single gene mutations, all of which influence prognosis.

Some AML patients do well at any age - for instance patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (with a translocation between chromosomes 15 and 17) do very very well, the treatment is relatively gentle, and they rarely need a transplant. But some forms of AML are an absolute disaster at any age.

She had such bad luck.

Knowing what I know, if I had AML with inv(3) I would agree to a few cycles of chemo to buy me time to get my affairs in order and say goodbye to people while I stockpiled opiates/figured out a way to kill myself on my own terms.

Ms. Schlossberg, however, did something very generous - she reportedly participated in a clinical trial for some sort of CAR T-cells, which adds to our medical knowledge. Someday we may find a cure for AML with inv(3) (assuming our govt doesn’t continue to dismantle our country’s research enterprise), and it will be because of the patients who agreed to participate in clinical trials. This is a generous choice, and she undoubtedly did some good for the unfortunate patients who come after her.

[Anonymous]

They bought a new home near Caroline and Ed in September. They were clearly planning ahead, for the grandparents to be heavily involved with raising the children. It's nice they could do that. The kids may not have many direct memories of Tatiana, but they will grow up surrounded by her memories and loving their mom all the same. Still horribly sad, but that's not nothing.