Former Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse on Tuesday said he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Sasse, 53, made the announcement on social media, saying he learned of the disease last week and is 鈥渘ow marching to the beat of a faster drummer.鈥�
鈥淭his is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I鈥檒l cut to the chase,鈥� Sasse wrote. 鈥淟ast week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.鈥�
Sasse was first elected to the Senate in 2014 and won reelection in 2020. He in 2023 to serve as the 13th after a contentious approval process. He the following year after his wife was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Sasse was an of President Donald Trump, and he was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict the former president of 鈥渋ncitement of insurrection鈥� after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard, St. John鈥檚 College and Yale, worked as an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. He then served as president of Midland University before he ran for the Senate. Midland is a small Christian university in eastern Nebraska.
Sasse and his wife have three children.
鈥淚鈥檓 not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God鈥檚 grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more," Sasse wrote. 鈥淒eath and dying aren鈥檛 the same 鈥� the process of dying is still something to be lived.鈥�
