Maria Shriver praised her “extraordinary” cousin Tatiana Schlossberg after she announced her diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia.
The journalist shared Schlossberg’s New Yorker essay on Instagram on Saturday, in which she revealed that she was given a year to live after giving birth to her second child last year.
“If you can only read one thing today, please take the time to read this extraordinary work by my cousin’s (Caroline Kennedy) extraordinary daughter Tatiana,” she wrote.
“Tatiana is a beautiful writer, journalist, wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend,” added Shriver, 70. “This work is about what she’s been through over the past year and a half.
“This is an ode to all the doctors and nurses on the front lines of humanity. There’s a lot to it, but it’s best read for yourself and be shocked by one woman’s life story.”
The former California first lady, who was married to Arnold Schwarzenegger, asked readers to “be grateful for the life you’re living today, in this moment.”
Schlossberg’s heartbreaking essay detailed how, after welcoming her daughter (whose name has not yet been released) in May 2024, doctors noticed her “blood counts were off.”
“A normal white blood cell count is about 4 to 11,000 cells per microliter,” she said. “Mine was 131,000 cells per microliter.”
The 35-year-old journalist recalled telling her doctor that the blood test results were related to her pregnancy, “or it could be leukemia.”
“I couldn’t believe they were talking about me,” Schlossberg wrote. “I swam a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. In fact, I was one of the healthiest people I know.”
She said medical professionals recommended a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy.
However, after several months of treatment, I was told that her condition had worsened.
Schlossberg said her first thought was of her and husband George Moran’s newborn daughter and 3-year-old son.
She said Moran did “everything he could,” including communicating with doctors and staying with them by sleeping with them on the floor of the hospital room.
She also praised her parents, Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, and her siblings (older sister Rose and younger brother Jack) for stepping in and helping raise their two children over the past year and a half while she underwent treatment.
