{"id":17068,"date":"2025-12-23T16:31:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T16:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ben-sasse-says-he-has-stage-4-pancreatic-cancer\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T16:31:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T16:31:44","slug":"ben-sasse-says-he-has-stage-4-pancreatic-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ben-sasse-says-he-has-stage-4-pancreatic-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Sasse says he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Sen. Ben Sasse announced on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n

The Nebraska Republican shared the news on X, writing in a lengthy social media post<\/a> that he had received the diagnosis last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it\u2019s a death sentence,\u201d Sasse said. \u201cBut I already had a death sentence before last week too \u2014 we all do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two term senator retired in 2023 and then went on to serve as president of the University of Florida. He eventually left the school to spend more time with his wife, Melissa, after she was diagnosed with epilepsy.<\/p>\n

Sasse continued to teach classes at University of Florida\u2019s Hamilton Center after he stepped down as president. He previously served as a professor at the University of Texas, as an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services and as president of Midland University.<\/p>\n

Sasse on Tuesday shared that he and his wife have only grown closer since and opened up about his children\u2019s recent successes and milestones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a good time to tell your peeps you\u2019re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer \u2014 but the season of advent isn\u2019t the worst,\u201d Sasse said. \u201cAs a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sasse said he\u2019ll have more to share in the future, adding that he is \u201cnot going down without a fight\u201d and will be undergoing treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeath and dying aren\u2019t the same \u2014 the process of dying is still something to be lived. We\u2019re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I\u2019ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape,\u201d Sasse said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Sen. Ben Sasse announced on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer. The Nebraska Republican shared the news on X, writing in a lengthy social media post that he had received the diagnosis last week. \u201cAdvanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it\u2019s a death sentence,\u201d Sasse said. \u201cBut I already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}