Former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse is opening up about his battle with stage IV metastatic pancreatic cancer.
“In mid-December, I got a three-to four-month life expectancy, and I’m at day 99 or something since then, and I’m doing a heck of a lot better than I was doing at Christmas,” Sasse, 54, told interviewer Ross Douthat in an article published by The New York Times on Thursday, April 9.
The politician reflected on his diagnosis late last year, revealing that he is cherishing whatever time he has left after overcoming the initial shock.
Sasse noted that he began doing sprint triathlons in his 30s to stay fit, revealing he had been training for some “short tris” this past fall “and I ended up with a ton of back pain.”
“But over the course of November, I ended up in significant enough pain that I went to my executive doc at the University of Florida and I said, ‘Something’s not right here,’” he recalled.
He added, “They sent me for full body scans on the morning of December 13 or 14, and they called me back 45 minutes later and you could just hear them hemming and hawing.”
After being sent to a gastroenterologist for further review, Sasse said he asked his doctor for the cold, hard truth. “He was driving too. He said, ‘I’m going to pull over off the side of the road.’ Then he said, ‘Here’s a hard fact: Ben Sasse’s torso is chock-full of tumors.’”
Sasse said they wasted no time informing him that his cancer was far too progressed to be operable. “You have a definite death sentence, but there are some clinical trials that could extend life a little bit,” he recalled.
Sasse said he’s been prescribed a drug called daraxonrasib as part of his treatment plan. “I take it orally, but it’s a nasty drug. It causes crazy stuff like my body can’t grow skin and so I bleed all out of a whole bunch of parts of me that shouldn’t be bleeding.”
As for his pain, the University of Florida president said it’s become more manageable. “I’m down to only about 30 milligrams a day of morphine,” Sasse revealed. “I’d say my pain is 80 percent reduced from where I started. I manage nausea a lot. There’s strong waves of desire to puke. And when my face isn’t bleeding, I’m actually pretty good with the puke.”
Looking ahead, the father of three, who shares daughters Elizabeth and Alexandra as well as son Breck with wife Melissa, admits there is a lingering “heaviness” when thinking about his family’s future milestones without him.
“I didn’t like the idea of my 14-year-old son not having a dad around at 16,” he shared. “I didn’t like the idea of my daughters, who are 22 and 24, not having their dad there to walk them down the aisle.”
Sasse said that “death is something that we should hate.”
“We should call it a wicked thief,” he added. “And yet, it’s pretty good that you pass through the veil of tears one time and then there will be no more tears, there will be no more cancer.”
