“…from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”
JFK’s granddaughter reveals terminal cancer diagnosis, criticizes cousin RFK Jr.:
Schlossberg, an environmental journalist, wrote she has undergone rounds of chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants, the first using cells from her sister and the next from an unrelated donor, and participated in clinical trials. During the latest trial, she wrote that her doctor told her “he could keep me alive for a year, maybe.”
Schlossberg said the policies pushed by her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, could hurt cancer patients like her. Caroline Kennedy urged senators to reject RFK Jr.’s confirmation.
“As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers,” she wrote in the essay.
You know, I fear what I will be like when I am dying and know it. I haven’t seen a lot of it up close, over the long term, or even the daily of the short term–when my sainted mother got sick seventeen years ago, I saw her almost daily and sat with her during her infusions, but, ah, could I, should I have done more? I’ve seen people who were not normally become bitter, become whiny, under the needle. I’ve seen people intubated and incapacitated with drugs still prioritize others above themselves.
I, too much, fear I would be among the bitter or the ones still trying to score political points or elevate themselves in comparison to others.
To be honest, it’s why I should get back to working out and to trying to keep up with the young people in athletic endeavors. So my heart just bursts, and we don’t have to find out who I really am.
(I know, I know; Khan was quoting Moby Dick. But I’ve both seen and read The Wrath of Khan more recently than Moby Dick, and this is most likely to be true forever except in the case that I reread it, and then only briefly until I watch Star Trek II again.)
