Tatiana Schlossberg battled terminal cancer with the unwavering support of her family, as detailed in her recent personal essay. Her siblings, Rose and Jack Schlossberg, played crucial roles during her stem cell treatment, offering both a life-saving donation and steadfast encouragement.
Her elder sister, Rose Schlossberg, proved to be a compatible match and donated her stem cells. Tatiana, 35, recounted this in her “A Battle With My Blood” essay published in The New Yorker on Saturday, November 22. Her brother, Jack Schlossberg, though only partially compatible, still insisted on asking doctors if his cells could be used.
The Schlossberg siblings are the children of Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Edwin Schlossberg.
Tatiana received a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia in 2024, shortly after welcoming her second child. She and her husband, George Moran, had a son in 2022 and a daughter in 2024.
After consulting with her medical team, Schlossberg learned she had a rare blood cell mutation. Doctors initially gave her approximately one year to live.
Her treatment plan was extensive and challenging. “I couldn’t be cured by standard treatment,” she explained in her New Yorker essay. “I would need at least a few months of chemotherapy, the goal of which would be to reduce the amount of blast cells in my bone marrow.”
Following chemotherapy, she required a bone marrow transplant, which offered a chance for a cure. She also anticipated needing further regular chemotherapy to prevent the cancer from returning. Tatiana also participated in several clinical trials in addition to the stem cell treatment from Rose.
Tatiana vividly described her sister’s donation process. “My sister kept her arms outstretched for hours while doctors drained blood from one, extracted and froze her stem cells, and returned the blood through the other,” she recalled. “The cells smelled like canned tomato soup. When the transfusion began, I sneezed twelve times and vomited.”
The period after the transplant involved a lengthy recovery. Tatiana waited for her blood counts to rebound and for her sister’s cells to integrate into her system. Her hair began to fall out, prompting her to wear scarves as she remembered her hair’s former quality.
During her hospitalization, with her husband George Moran by her side, other family members stepped in to care for her young children. Her parents, brother, and sister were consistent presences, visiting her hospital rooms almost daily for a year and a half.
Tatiana expressed profound gratitude for their support. “They have held my hand steadily as I suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness to protect me,” she wrote. “This has been a great gift, though I feel their grief every day.” She acknowledged the new tragedy her illness brought to her family’s life.
Following the essay’s publication, her family continues to rally behind her. Jack, 32, shared links to the article on his Instagram account. Her cousin, Maria Shriver, 70, also offered public support on Instagram.
Shriver lauded Tatiana as a “wonderful writer, journalist, wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend.” She described the New Yorker piece as an “ode to all the doctors and nurses” and encouraged readers to experience Tatiana’s life story directly. Shriver urged her followers to read the essay and use it as “a reminder to thank the life you are living today, right now, at this very moment.”