Former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) announced Tuesday he has been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
The former two-term senator, 53, wrote in a lengthy social media post that he received the diagnosis last week.
“This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die,” Sasse continued. “Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.”
“I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, ‘Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.’ Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all,” he added.
The Nebraska Republican added, “I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight.”
“One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more,” he wrote near the end of the post. “Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.”
Sasse retired from the upper chamber in 2023, having grown frustrated in his final years in office, to become president of the University of Florida. He left that post after more than a year due to the health of his wife, Melissa, in light of “recent epilepsy diagnosis and a new batch of memory issues.”
He also noted he has spent recent months growing closer with his wife and ticked through what his children have been accomplishing.
“There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst,” the former lawmaker wrote. “As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.”
Sasse had stayed on at the university to teach classes at its Hamilton Center. Prior to his tenure in the Senate, he was a professor at the University of Texas, served as an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services and was president of Midland University in his home state.
The ex-Nebraska senator is not the only upper chamber figure to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) died from it in 2021 after a four-year battle.
