Illness and Death
After being nominated by Bush, Neilson learned that she had myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare blood disorder that eventually required her to undergo a bone marrow transplant in 2003. Though greatly diminished physically, Neilson returned to work and, following confirmation, moved her chambers to the federal courthouse in Detroit. On January 25, 2006, Neilson succumbed to the lingering effects of her illness, and died of lung failure in Detroit at the age of 49. Due to her illness and death, Neilson served for only two months on the Sixth Circuit and never wrote any opinions. According to an order of the court published in January 2006, Neilson participated in a decision to rehear a case en banc. The order does not indicate whether Neilson voted for or against rehearing.
At the same time, former Clinton nominee Lewis discovered she had lung cancer in 2005, and she died of an inoperable tumor on her lung in 2007.
Neilson was survived by her husband and two daughters.
Read more about this topic: Susan Bieke Neilson
Famous quotes containing the words illness and/or death:
“More than illness or death, the American journalist fears standing alone against the whim of his owners or the prejudices of his audience. Deprive William Safire of the insignia of the New York Times, and he would have a hard time selling his truths to a weekly broadsheet in suburban Duluth.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practise, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever- present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)