diagnosis

Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of slain President John F. Kennedy, is battling a rare form of leukemia and may have less than a year to live.

In an essay published Saturday in the New Yorker, the 35-year-old environmental journalist wrote her illness was discovered in May 2024 after she gave birth to her daughter. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation known as Inversion 3 and has undergone several treatments, including chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants.

Schlossberg is a daughter of former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, the former president’s daughter, and Edwin Schlossberg. They live in New York.

In her essay, Schlossberg acknowledged that her terminal illness adds to a string of tragedies that has befallen the famous political family. Her grandfather was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Nearly five years later, his brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was fatally shot in Los Angeles after giving a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel following his California presidential primary win. Her uncle, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in 1999 when his small plane crashed.

“For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” Schlossberg wrote.

“Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

She wrote her diagnosis was stunning. She had just turned 34, didn’t feel sick and was physically active, including swimming a mile one day before she gave birth to her second child at Columbia-Presbyterian hospital in New York.

After the delivery, her doctor became alarmed by her high white blood cell count.

At first, medical professionals figured the test result might be tied to her pregnancy. However, doctors soon concluded she had myeloid leukemia, a condition mostly observed in older patients. She ended up spending weeks in the hospital.

“Every doctor I saw asked me if I had spent a lot of time at Ground Zero, given how common blood cancers are among first responders,” Schlossberg wrote. “I was in New York on 9/11, in the sixth grade, but I didn’t visit the site until years later.”

She has endured various treatments. Her older sister, Rose, was one of her bone marrow donors.

In the article, Schlossberg mentioned the Kennedy family’s dilemma over controversial positions taken by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., her mother’s cousin. Schlossberg wrote that while she was in the hospital in mid-2024, Kennedy suspended his long-shot campaign for president to throw his weight behind then-Republican candidate President Trump.

Trump went on to name Kennedy to his Cabinet as secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In one of his early moves, Trump demanded a cut in government money to Columbia University, which employs her husband, George Moran.

“Doctors and scientists at Columbia, including George, didn’t know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have jobs,” she wrote. “Suddenly, the health-care system on which I relied felt strained, shaky.”

On Saturday, her brother Jack Schlossberg, who recently announced his bid for Congress in a New York district, shared on Instagram a link to her New Yorker essay, “A Battle with My Blood.”

He added: “Life is short — let it rip.”

SITTING in her car outside the hospital, Talia Oatway looks exhausted – her son Oakley is once again being treated, and this time the news is more terrifying than ever before.

The single mum-of-four and ex-partner of Geordie Shore star Aaron Chalmers may be drained, but as she tells The Sun all about her three-year-old’s diagnosis, she appears determined and ready to fight for his life.

Little Oakley was born with Apert syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes fusion of the skull, hands, and feet bones. At just three years old, he’s already been put under general anaesthetics 19 times, and last week, devastated Talia, 31, was told there is yet another issue he has to contend with – and this time it’s life-threatening hydrocephalus. 

Last year, Oakley ended up in a coma after complications during a planned operation on his skull. While initially, Talia expected him to be in hospital for five days, she ended up uprooting her life for seven weeks to be by his side.

Oakley has been living with just half his skull since then, after surgeons deemed it too dangerous to try to replace it.

Once they finally returned home, Talia soon realised something wasn’t right, but she wasn’t prepared for just how hard everything was about to become.

You don’t understand the pressure I’m under. At home, even when he’s well, you’re still looking for signs, thinking, ‘Is something going to happen?’

Talia on being a medical mum

She explains: “Since that admission, we’ve been back and forth with hospitals and coming to A&E because he kept vomiting non-stop to the point where he was getting too dehydrated and needed a drip. 

“Then he got diagnosed with something called CVS – cyclic vomiting syndrome. He gets migraines, then he starts projectile vomiting. And that was because he got meningitis last year. It triggered a neurological condition.”

Oakley was given medication, but wasn’t responding – concerned doctors rushed him in for a CT scan, where they discovered he had a condition called hydrocephalus, which is a build-up of fluid on the brain. 

Talia tells The Sun: “The CT scan also showed that he had a bit of brain damage at the front of the brain from the meningitis last year.

“It also showed that his forehead they’d rebuilt was absorbing a percentage of the bone.

“So he’s actually got less bone from last year when they removed part of it because his body was absorbing part of it because of the fluid.”

Doctors have now fitted a shunt in Oakley’s brain to drain the fluid, and he is being monitored in hospital to see how his body will react.

Fighting back tears, Talia says: “There’s a lot of stress around being vigilant with Oakley’s care, acting on instinct, acting on signs that he shows.

“But Oakley’s non-verbal. So it’s not as if he can say, ‘I’ve got a headache and I’m about to be sick’, or, ‘I feel dizzy’.

“The two conditions he’s got are exactly the same symptoms. However, one of them can be life-threatening if it’s not treated when it needs to be treated.”

Talia, who has made a name for herself online as a ‘medical mum’ influencer, has taken a step back from social media as she comes to terms with the latest development.

‘I don’t like to air dirty laundry’

She first became known when she started dating Geordie Shore star Aaron in 2017.

The pair had a whirlwind romance and welcomed three children in quick succession –  Romeo, five, Maddox, four, and Oakley.

Speaking about the start of their relationship, she reveals:  “We always wanted a big family. This sounds really cringe, but I love being a mum.

“I love being pregnant. I loved having the babies and the routine and the whole mum thing. I absolutely loved that. And I still love it.”

During her pregnancy with Oakley, doctors flagged that there could be an issue – she had two MRIs but was discharged from foetal medicine and was told everything was fine.

She says: “So when Oakley was born, obviously it was a shock.”

Asked when the true extent of his issues dawned on her, Talia says: “I don’t think it truly hit me until Oakley was about three months old when he was bouncing in and out of hospital.”

The pressure became too much, and Aaron made the decision that the relationship was over.

Asked about their split, she says: “I think the pressures of what comes with being a medical family, your priorities change. And the pressures that come with it are a lot. Speaking with other medical families, it takes a very, very strong couple to survive a relationship.

“Trauma, as in what your child goes through, the constant hospital stays, all of that sort of stuff… that’s just the way it went.”

Since their split, Aaron has hit out at Talia on a number of occasions, but she has mostly kept a dignified silence.

Last week, though, things reached boiling point, with the struggling mum admitting: “I do solo parent two of my children. Oakley’s here every single night, he has been for over a year, and the fact that this person can just go online and start talking about his medical care when he doesn’t attend any appointments, doesn’t attend hospital, is mind-blowing.” 

But having time to calm down, she adds: “I don’t like to air dirty laundry. I think my kids will grow up, and once things are on the internet, they will stay on the internet, and I’ve always been mindful of that.”

‘I got dealt these cards’

Asked how she is coping with it all, Talia explains: “I’ve had no option but to just put my big girl pants on and learn for my son.

“I got dealt these cards and I’ve got to deal with it and make sure my son’s always being cared for, always safe.

“I’m his advocate because he doesn’t speak. I say all the time, you don’t understand the pressure I’m under. At home, even when he’s well, you’re still looking for signs, thinking, ‘Is something going to happen?’, you’re waiting for the next thing.”

Oakley sleeps with the help of ventilation at home and uses oxygen when he’s unwell – he has a tube in his nose, which is seven centimetres long, to keep his airway open. Talia explains: “If that tube comes out, you’ve got to straightaway put that back in because that’s his breathing support.”

Talia is full of praise for the NHS, as well as Oakley’s lead respiratory consultant, who she describes as “amazing”.

She’s also seeing a psychologist once a week to help her process what is going on.

Talia won’t let herself think about a worst-case scenario.

Looking to the future, the mum is cautious and tells me: “I just want things to calm down for him. Have some time at home without hospital admissions, and enjoy being a child.

“I feel like he’s not really had that time to have that, because it has been quite a lot of hospital admissions – whether that’s an operation, a CT scan, lumbar drains, he’s had a lot of things done to him.”

In the meantime, Talia is enjoying the special little moments with her boy – and despite him being non-verbal, he has developed his own form of communication.

She says: “Affection is not very much at the moment because he’s also got a global developmental delay as well. But like I can say, ‘OK, can I have a kiss? Can I have a kiss?’

“Because he wears hearing aids, too, he still can hear a little bit. And he will give me a kiss, or I say, I’ll cuddle, and then I’ll pick him up, and he knows.

“It makes me appreciate things a lot more when he does do it, because it isn’t often.”

As the interview comes to an end, Talia heads back inside the hospital, and it’s clear that behind the social media persona is an incredibly strong, brave and caring woman doing it all on her own.

Denver Broncos linebacker Alex Singleton played in their recent victory over Las Vegas Raiders despite being diagnosed with testicular cancer a few days earlier.

The 31-year-old had surgery last Friday to remove a cancerous tumor that was in its early stages – a day after he made nine tackles in the Broncos’ 10-7 win over the Raiders at Mile High Stadium.

In a post on his Instagram account,, external Singleton said his health concerns started over two weeks ago following a drug test that showed elevated levels of the hormone hcG in his system.

A visit to a urologist, who performed an ultrasound last week, revealed the presence of testicular cancer.

Singleton said he is on the road to recovery after an operation and predicted he will return to the field in “the coming weeks” as he awaits additional test results but has “a great prognosis”.

“I wrestled with sharing such personal information publicly,” Singleton said.

“But the fact is, if it helps one person decide to pay closer attention to their body, then it is well worth it.

“Early detection and regular screenings save lives and can save loved ones from a lot of grief.”

DAVINA McCall has hailed Lorraine Kelly for encouraging people to “check their breasts” – after she bravely revealed her own cancer struggle.

Davina, 58, told fans she discovered a lump while “sitting on the loo” – after being urged to by posters put up by Lorraine.

The Masked Singer star shared her shock diagnosis at a Dine with Davina event yesterday, before posting an emotional video on Instagram today.

The crowd at the charity do – hosted at the Utilita Bowl in Southampton, Hampshire – gasped as she opened up on her quiet struggle.

Davina explained she made the discovery a few weeks ago, but has since had the lump removed and been given the all clear.

She will not undergo chemotherapy, but will be required to have five days of radiotherapy as a “insurance policy”.

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Davina had spotted signs in the ITV Studios encouraging people to “check their boobs”, which had been put up by Lorraine.

In the video on social media, she said: “I was working on The Masked Singer and Lorraine, the TV show.

“Lorraine Kelly had put signs on the backs of all the doors saying ‘check your breasts’ and every time I went for a wee I did that.

“It was still there, and then one morning I saw myself in the mirror and thought ‘I’m going to get that looked at’.”

Speaking on stage, she said: “I went and I got it checked. She (the doctor) was like, ‘You’re fine. You had a mammogram in August. It’ll be fine’.

“And I thought, oh, I’ll be fine. That’s great. But then she said, ‘Oh, well, if it is anything, we’ll do a little biopsy’.

“‘But if it is anything, it’s so small, you’ve got it early’. Anyway, I got the result back a few days ago. It was four millimetres, which is minute.

“I had a biopsy. I found out it was indeed breast cancer and I had it taken out in a lumpectomy nearly three weeks ago.”

She said her fiance and hairdresser Michael Douglas, 52, encouraged her to open up about how she was feeling.

Davina continued: “Because when I got it I just started feeling much better – you and me got into a really good place.

“I got really f*****g angry. And you know me, I’m a pacifist – I don’t really get angry – I’m like Tigger. I’m just always happy.

“I was like: ‘Are you f******g joking? What the f**k! Are you serious?”

“I was keeping it all in and Michael one day looked at me and he said: ‘Stop. I can see what you’re doing.

“‘You’re not going there. He said: ‘Let’s talk about it – I said: ‘I’m fine.

“He said: ‘You’re not fine’. I was like: ‘No, no, I’m fine. Honestly. ‘I’m not f*****g fine, that’s why I’m f*****g mad.

“He just sat and he came and watched me and I was f*****g stamping my feet. And it felt so good.”

It comes almost a year after the mum-of-three underwent emergency surgery to remove a “very rare” brain tumour.

The Long Lost Family host initially broke the news to her followers in a heartwrenching video on Instagram.

Davina had asked for prayers before having the operation to get the 14mm benign tumour – called a colloid cyst – removed.

Davina previously said her operation to remove the benign tumour was “the best thing to ever happen to me”.

She admitted spiralling into denial after it was discovered by chance last year, but was spurred into action by surgeons.

Breaking down in tears at Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Festival, Davina revealed doctors told her she would die if she didn’t act quickly.

She said: “I needed someone to tell me what to do, and my American doctor told me I should undergo surgery to have the tumour cut out.

“When I got the phone call, although it was a hard one to hear, I needed it.

“But after the operation, I was aware of a noise in my head, and they were thoughts. I realised I did not have that before.

“I am not afraid of dying anymore. It was the biggest journey of my life. It was an amazing time.”

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Davina has since started her Begin Again podcast in an attempt to help others on their deathbed.

The show is dedicated to empowering people to embrace midlife as their most transformative era yet.