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Former Republican Sen. Ben Sasse announced Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with terminal, stage-four pancreatic cancer.
Sasse, 53, shared the news in a post on X, calling the diagnosis a “death sentence.”
“Friends, 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 wrote.
Sasse represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 2015 until 2023, when he resigned to become president of the University of Florida.
“This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad,” he wrote.
Sasse and his wife, Melissa, have three children. He wrote that the past year had drawn the couple closer as they stepped back from public life and focused on family.
“During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer, and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have,” he wrote.
Sasse shared family milestones, noting that his daughter Corrie was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force seven months ago and is now in advanced flight training, while his daughter Alex graduated from college a semester early. His 14-year-old son, Breck, recently began learning to drive.
“I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints,” he wrote.
Sasse also reflected on his Christian faith and the timing of the diagnosis during the Advent season.
“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,” he 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.”
A Nebraska native, Sasse is the son of a high school teacher and football coach. He earned a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University, studied at Oxford University and St. John’s College, and received a doctorate in history from Yale University.