Ben Sasse spent most of his adult life in the public eye\u2014college president, U.S. senator, policy wonk known for long, winding speeches about civics. Today the 54-year-old Nebraskan is known for something else: stage IV metastatic pancreatic cancer, a diagnosis delivered last December with the blunt prognosis of three to four months left. Ninety-nine days later he is still upright, still talking, and\u2014by his own account\u2014learning how to die in the same deliberate way he once learned how to campaign.<\/p>\n
Last fall Sasse was preparing for a series of short-distance triathlons, the kind of endurance hobby that had become a ritual since he first entered his thirties. He chalked up mounting back pain to over-training and age until the ache became \u201ca constant, teeth-gritting thing,\u201d he told New York Times<\/em> columnist Ross Douthat in an interview published April 9. On December 13 he walked into the University of Florida\u2019s imaging center for what he assumed would be routine scans. Forty-five minutes later his phone rang.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could hear the discomfort in their voices,\u201d Sasse recalled. By nightfall a gastroenterologist had pulled his car to the roadside to deliver the line that reset everything: \u201cBen Sasse\u2019s torso is chock-full of tumors.\u201d Surgery was off the table; chemotherapy might buy weeks. Clinical trials, maybe months. \u201cA definite death sentence,\u201d the doctor said, \u201cbut we can try to extend life a little.\u201d<\/p>\n Pancreatic tumors are notorious for growing silently. The organ sits deep in the abdomen, surrounded by fat and digestive tissue that masks early symptoms. By the time pain or jaundice appears, roughly 52 percent of patients already have distant metastases, according to the American Cancer Society. Five-year survival for stage IV disease hovers around 3 percent.<\/p>\n Sasse\u2019s malignancy had spread to lymph nodes and liver by the time imaging caught it. He began aggressive chemotherapy within days, lost thirty pounds, and endured the familiar cycle of nausea, neuropathy, and fatigue. Yet three months in, tumor markers have dipped enough that his oncologist calls the response \u201cbetter than textbook.\u201d The senator stresses the improvement is relative: \u201cI\u2019m still dying, just slower than the first forecast.\u201d<\/p>\n A historian by training, Sasse talks about death less as a medical event than a narrative crisis. \u201cDeath is a wicked thief,\u201d he told Douthat. \u201cIt tries to steal time you thought you\u2019d have, conversations you haven\u2019t gotten to, apologies you never made.\u201d To reclaim some of that narrative, he and his wife Melissa convened their three teenagers for what they labeled \u201cthe summer of intentional memory-making.\u201d The checklist looks ordinary on paper but carries new weight:<\/p>\n Faith also shifted ground. Raised Lutheran and later associated with Presbyterian circles, Sasse says he no longer prays for miraculous remission. \u201cI pray for clear-headed days, for humor that doesn\u2019t sound like denial, for the guts to tell people I love them without sounding like a greeting card.\u201d<\/p>\n Colleagues who once sparred with him on the Senate floor have responded with notes that surprise him in their tenderness. Senator Cory Booker sent a voice memo recalling Sasse\u2019s habit of quoting Wendell Berry at 2 a.m. during budget votes. Senator Amy Klobuchar mailed a box of Minnesota wild rice and a letter that ended, \u201cThe chamber is quieter without your lectures, but the country is better because you gave a damn.\u201d<\/p>\n He resigned from the University of Florida presidency in January, citing health reasons, and now spends most days in shorts and a University of Nebraska hoodie, walking the neighborhood until neuropathy numbs his feet. \u201cI used to move through the world guarded by titles\u2014senator, president, Dr. Sasse,\u201d he said. \u201cCancer strips that stuff away fast. You\u2019re just the bald guy who needs help tying his shoes some mornings.\u201d<\/p>\n Sasse is under no illusion that his story is unique; roughly 1,700 Americans receive a pancreatic cancer diagnosis each week. Still, he hopes talking about it demystifies the process. \u201cWe treat death like a medical error instead of a life event,\u201d he said. \u201cThat leaves patients isolated and families unprepared.\u201d<\/p>\n He has completed advance directives, appointed a health-care proxy, and scheduled \u201clegacy interviews\u201d with historians at the University of Nebraska, where his papers are archived. The goal, he<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Sasse spent most of his adult life in the public eye\u2014college president, U.S. senator, policy wonk known for long, winding speeches about civics. Today the 54-year-old Nebraskan is known for something else: stage IV metastatic pancreatic cancer, a diagnosis delivered last December with the blunt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/influencerswiki.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why Pancreatic Cancer Moves So Fast<\/h2>\n
Faith, Family, and the Fierce Urgency of Goodbye<\/h2>\n
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Public Life, Private Mortality<\/h2>\n
What He Wants You to Know About Dying on Your Own Terms<\/h2>\n