Health4 min(s) read
Published 13:49 11 Apr 2026 GMT
Former US senator Ben Sasse has opened up about how he initially thought his severe pain was a training injury, only to be told weeks later that he had just months to live.
The 54-year-old Republican, who represented Nebraska for eight years, was diagnosed with metastasized Stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December 2025.
During an interview with The New York Times, he shared that he decided to seek medical advice for what he believed was a pulled muscle from triathlon training.
"You get into your 30s, 40s and 50s and you're like, 'How do I stay fit?'", Sasse said. "So, I used to do a lot of sprint triathlons. This fall, I'd been training for some short tris, and I ended up with a ton of back pain.
"I realized, 'Oh, maybe it’s stupid to be wearing the 45-pound weighted vest all the time' - not just when you’re training for running events but also on your bike, because it turns out that’s not the right posture to be wearing a lot of weight," he said.
By late October, Sasse had "a lot of back and abdominal pain," and thought he "just pulled some ab muscles from stupid forms of training".
But as the pain deteriorated through the following month, he went to the hospital and told his doctor: "'Something's not right here.'"
Initial tests led to full-body scans in mid-December, but the response he received immediately raised alarm bells.
"I said, 'Stop beating around the bush. Give me a hard fact'," Sasse recalled. "They start talking about not wanting to be too premature, and there's been so many changes in oncology care - dude, you have not told me I have cancer yet, and you're talking to me about how great oncology care is."
Doctors soon confirmed his torso was "chock-full of tumors," and that the cancer had already spread beyond the point of surgery.
"They told me over the course of the next couple of days that I already have five forms of cancer: lymphoma, vascular, lung cancer, bad liver cancer, and pancreatic, where it originated," he said. "So, it was pretty clear that we're dealing with a short number of months left to live."
Sasse said he was initially given a "three-to-four-month life expectancy," describing the diagnosis as "a death sentence," but has since been undergoing treatment in an effort to extend his time.
The experimental drug he is taking has caused severe side effects. He said it "causes crazy stuff like my body can’t grow skin and so I bleed all out of a whole bunch of parts of me that shouldn’t be bleeding."
He added that his face feels "nuclear" and that he experiences "strong waves of desire to puke".
Despite this, he said he is "doing a heck of a lot better than I was doing at Christmas," and that tumor volume has decreased.
"Cancer sucks," Sasse said. "But I’m pretty grateful that cancer is a stake against my delusional self-idolatry."
Sasse said the hardest part has been thinking about his children. "I didn’t like the idea of my 14-year-old not having a dad around at 16. I didn’t like the idea of my daughters, who are 22 and 24, not having a parent there to walk them down the aisle," he said.
"We’re all on the clock, and I wanted to have prioritized better," Sasse said. "Whether I really only have three or four months left, or nine to 12 months, I want to prioritize better from then."
Even while confronting his mortality, the former senator continues to work and speak publicly.
"Death is terrible. We should never sugarcoat it. It is not how things are meant to be. But it is great that death can be called the final enemy. It’s an enemy, but it’s a final enemy, and there will then be no more tears," he said.
"I believe in the Resurrection, and I believe in a restoration of this world. So, I did not feel great fear about my death. I didn’t want the pain I was going through. I didn’t want to be a pansy a** in the final moments," he concluded.
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