The Kennedy family has been inundated with support following news of Tatiana Schlossberg's terminal cancer diagnosis.
On Saturday, November 22, the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather John F. Kennedy's assassination, the climate journalist, 35, revealed in a devastating essay for The New Yorker that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, with a rare mutation called Inversion 3, hours after giving birth to her second child.
The author is one of three children who Caroline Kennedy, the former president's only living child, shares with her husband Edwin Schlossberg. They are also parents to daughter Rose Schlossberg, 37, and son Jack Schlossberg, 32, who is currently running for congress.
© Getty Images for New York MagaziAs messages of support came in for Tatiana from family members and beyond, her cousin Katherine Schwarzenegger was among them. Katherine is related to Tatiana via her mother Maria Shriver, whose mother Eunice Kennedy Shriver was one of JFK's eight siblings.
Sharing photos of Tatiana's New Yorker essay on Instagram, Katherine, who is the same age as Tatiana, wrote: "This is a profound piece written by my extraordinary cousin, Tatiana. It's been shared by many and should be read by all. I have only tears and anger reading that this is her reality."
She continued: "She has lived this experience with so much grace and I am in awe of her as a human, mother, wife, daughter, writer and fighter."
© Getty"I am and continue to be grateful for all the doctors and nurses helping her and encourage you to read her words about how the state of the country, the cuts and uncertainty, impacts and terrifies those in medicine and receiving treatment like Tatiana has been over the past year and a half, and continues to receive," Katherine added, referring to how Tatiana called out their uncle Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the detrimental effects of his misguided reign over the Department of Health and Human Services as its director, where he cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, and slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world's largest sponsor of medical research.
In her piece, Tatiana, describing the anti-vaccine activist as an "embarrassment" to herself and "the rest of my immediate family," wrote: "I watched from my hospital bed as Bobby, in the face of logic and common sense, was confirmed for the position, despite never having worked in medicine, public health, or the government."
"Suddenly, the health-care system on which I relied felt strained, shaky," she recalled, adding of her husband George Moran and other doctors: "Doctors and scientists at Columbia, including George, didn’t know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have jobs … If George changed jobs, we didn't know if we'd be able to get insurance, now that I had a preexisting condition. Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was especially concerned that I wouldn't be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised, along with millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly."
© Instagram"Bobby has said, 'There's no vaccine that is safe and effective.' Bobby probably doesn't remember the millions of people who were paralyzed or killed by polio before the vaccine was available. My dad, who grew up in New York City in the nineteen-forties and fifties, does remember. Recently, I asked him what it was like when he got the vaccine. He said that it felt like freedom," she emphasized.
© WireImageKatherine's mother Maria also took to Instagram and shared a touching message for Tatiana. "If you can only read one thing today, please make time for this extraordinary piece of writing by my cousin Caroline’s extraordinary daughter Tatiana. Tatiana is a beautiful writer, journalist, wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. This piece is about what she has been going through for the last year and a half."
"It's an ode to all the doctors and nurses who toil on the frontlines of humanity. It's so many things, but best to read it yourself, and be blown away by one woman's life story. And let it be a reminder to be grateful for the life you are living today, right now, this very minute."
