Ruth Bader Ginsburg recalls now-dead senator announcing with glee ‘that I was going to be dead within six months’
By JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
JUL 24, 2019 | 7:14 AM

Ruth Bader Ginsburg recalls now-dead senator announcing with glee ‘that I was going to be dead within six months’
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Alex Wong/Getty)
The Notorious RBG says she’s not going anywhere.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who has so far survived three bouts with cancer — acknowledged the recurring fervor surrounding any and all of her health updates in an interview with NPR published Wednesday.

Rather than recall the support she has from thousands of followers nationwide, the tiny 86-year-old judge remembered when a previous cancer diagnosis prompted joy from a Republican politician.

“There was a senator. I think it was after the pancreatic cancer, who announced with great glee that I was going to be dead within six months. That senator, whose name I’ve forgotten is dead now himself,” she said with a chuckle.

“And I am very much alive.”

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When confronted with her own mortality, particularly by way of her cancer diagnoses, Ginsburg told the National Public Radio she has chosen to ignore the fear and her haters and instead focus on advice from opera singer Marilyn Horne.

“She said, ‘I will live,' not that ‘I hope I live’ or ‘I want to live,’ but ‘I will live,’” Ginsbrug explained, adding that it is her passion for her job and service that has truly carried her through repeated recovery efforts.

“The work is really what saved me because I had to concentrate on reading the briefs, doing a draft of an opinion, and I knew it just had to get done. So I had to get past whatever my aches and pains were just to do the job.”

Ginsburg most recently had cancer removed from her left lung at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City back in December. Doctors called it a “serendipitous pickup” after it was discovered by chance amid tests to diagnose a broken rib following a fall the month prior.

In 2009, the justice had a small early-stage pancreatic tumor removed and 10 years earlier was treated for a small, early-stage colon tumor.

The NPR interview came just on the heels of a private funeral for Justice John Paul Stevens, who died July 16 at the age of 99. He served for more than 34 years and retired in 2010 at the age 90 — making him the second oldest and third-longest Supreme Court Justice ever.

Ginsburg delivered one of his eulogies Tuesday and recalled how she told him on a recent trip to Portugal that her “dream is to remain on the court as long as you did.”

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“His immediate response?” she said. “’Stay longer!’"