NEW YORK-When Ben Sasse arrives at the hotel lobby bar of the Hyatt Grand Central in Midtown Manhattan, he tells me in an upbeat tone that he feels like he has a “new lease on life.” He tells the waiter he’ll have a Jack and Coke.
Since doctors told Sasse six months ago that he had three to four months left to live due to Stage IV metastatic pancreatic cancer, the former senator and college president has become something of an expert on gallows humor.