How Cancer Shaped Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life and Work
The name Ruth Bader Ginsburg became almost synonymous with strength and stamina as she rose to prominence in judicial and feminist circles throughout her long career. Famously nicknamed the Notorious RBG and known for her grueling fitness regimen, the late Supreme Court justice also struggled with cancer and other health issues for the better part of her time on the bench — culminating with her death on Sept. 18 at the age of 87 of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Ginsburg’s health issues became public in 1999, six years after her appointment to the Supreme Court, when she had surgery for early-stage colon cancer. Ten years later, she went through the same process for pancreatic cancer. And nearly a decade after that, the Supreme Court announced that Ginsburg had undergone surgery to have two cancerous growths removed from her left lung. She announced in July 2020 that she’d been treated earlier that year for cancerous lesions on her liver, but made clear her intentions to remain on the bench, noting that she was “satisfied that my treatment course is now clear.”
Ginsburg also had heart stent surgery in 2014 and multiple falls that resulted in broken or fractured ribs. During the spring and summer of 2020, while in treatment for liver cancer, she was also hospitalized for a gall bladder condition and a bile-duct repair. Throughout it all, she was adamant about keeping her medical issues separate from her judicial duties. She did not miss a single oral argument until her 2018 lung surgery, and even then worked from her New York City hospital bed as she recuperated. She rarely referred to her health struggles as more than “a challenge,” as she did in a 2015 MSNBC interview. She was always eager to return both to the bench and to the gym after treatment.
“I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that,” she said in July 2020.
https://time.com/5507530/ruth-bader-ginsburg-cancer-history/
