Former Sen. Ben Sasse, Bleeding from His Face, Shares Brutal Reality of Terminal Cancer at Age 54

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• Former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse sat at the table with blood on his face. New York Times to describe her painful experience with terminal cancer.

• Sasse, 54, was diagnosed with stage 4 inoperable pancreatic cancer in mid-December and said he learned his “body was full of tumors.”

• A new medication he was prescribed greatly improved his condition, but because his body was unable to grow new skin properly, it caused “blood to flow from a lot of parts of me that shouldn’t be bleeding”

• Despite the progress he’s made, Sasse said he realizes he doesn’t have much time left

Former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse sheds light on his painful journey with terminal cancer.

Former Republican senator and short-term president of the University of Florida (54), New York Times‘ podcast with a significant amount of blood on his face, less than four months after announcing that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. At the time, Sasse described the diagnosis as a “death sentence.”

Speaking with podcast host and columnist Ross Douthat, Sasse got candid about his own mortality and why he chose to speak publicly with the time he had left.

“I have a three to four month life expectancy in mid-December, and since then I’m on day 99 or so, and I’m doing much better than I did at Christmas,” Sasse shared. “But even if you have three to four months left to live, you need to take advantage of that time.”

“There’s a limit to the amount of unsolicited advice I can give my kids,” he added, so he’s happy to lend his best to reporters willing to listen.

Sasse said he first noticed something was wrong in late October 2025. He said sprint triathlons were his preferred method of staying in shape, and that’s when he noticed he was experiencing much more back and abdominal pain than usual while training. At first he thought he was just pulling a muscle.

By November 2025, the pain was so severe that he decided to seek medical help. His doctor ran several tests but nothing turned up, so Sasse’s doctor referred him to a gastroenterologist, believing the cause might be undiagnosed celiac or lactose intolerance.

She went for a full body scan in December and the doctor called her just 45 minutes later.

“You could just hear them giggling and whining. I said, ‘Stop beating around the bush. Tell me the absolute truth,'” Sasse recalled. After insisting for a few more minutes, the doctor said clearly: “Here is a sad fact: Ben Sasse’s body is full of tumors.”

Her doctor immediately told her that her cancer (stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which had already metastasized) was inoperable. In the following days, he learned that he had at least five types of cancer: lymphoma, vascular, lung, liver and pancreatic cancer. “So it was pretty clear that we were facing a small number of months to live,” he said.

Sasse said the diagnosis “wasn’t the scariest thing for me” because death was inevitable. He immediately wanted to know what his options were — “You have an outright death sentence, but there are some clinical trials that might extend life a little bit,” he said — and learned he could look for genetic mutations through clinical trials across the country.

Sasse had been working as president of the University of Florida since leaving the Senate, but clinical trials took him and his wife, Melissa, to New York City and then to Houston. He currently lives with some friends in Austin and commutes to Houston for two hours at most two days a week.

Sasse said his current treatment is a medication called daraxonrasib, which thankfully can be taken orally.

“I take it orally, but it’s a nasty drug. It causes crazy things like my body can’t grow skin, so I bleed out of a lot of parts of me that shouldn’t bleed,” he said, adding: “I feel better than I deserve.”

Sasse added that most of his treatment is pain management. When he was first diagnosed, he was on 55 milligrams of morphine and was “high as a kite,” but recently the dose has been able to be reduced to about 30 milligrams a day.

“I’m in the pharmacy every day. I’m running a lot of this industry right now,” he joked.

“I can say that my pain has decreased by 80 percent compared to where I started,” he said. “I deal with nausea very often. I have strong waves of wanting to vomit. And when my face isn’t bleeding, I’m actually pretty good at vomiting. I mean, I don’t like it, but you can vomit and get over it. Anyway, enough whining.”

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When asked about the wounds on his face, Sasse said they were “nuclear”. But he said the size of his tumors had decreased by 76% since the end of December.

However, Sasse explained that this was not a realistic hope for his full recovery. He compared cancer treatment to “What-a-Mole”; because new cancers always appear, even when the old pieces are taken care of or the dam has already begun to crack.

“Is there anyone recovering from stage 4? [pancreatic cancer]Douthat asked. Sasse replied: “As far as I know, no.”

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