Updates on the Princess of Wales

When there is a lack of official information, the vacuum created opens the door for speculation. And in this era of social media that speculation is often taken as fact.

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She is the mom of 3 young children who need her, I wish her all the best,

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Yes, it’s clear now that they had truly hoped to nagivate this without anyone knowing. I guess that was probably a naive notion, given their roles in their country, the world really, and in a society with a voracious appetite for knowing more than it might be entitled to know.

And of course, the exact cancer from which she suffers will be the next great mission that information seekers will undertake to discover. I can see the headlines now:
“What ails Kate?” I feel like the feeding frenzy will continue, now in an even more intense manner.

It’s a sad reality of being so much in the public eye. I can see why, from time to time, someone under this kind of scrutiny takes extreme actions to escape from it.

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From her statement:

“But, most importantly, it has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be ok.”

Her youngest just turned six.

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Amazing to me how some judge this woman for the timeline. It’s her life, her diagnosis and her family. So what if you did it differently? Good for you. If I had my way I wouldn’t have told anyone about my aggressive cancer diagnosis aside from my spouse, kids and parents. I never told neighbors or even some friends.

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Someone on this thread in the medical field said that this was cancer from the beginning and that the news would come out just like this.

My hope is that she really is just having preventative chemo and that the palace had hoped to get through it all without letting the public know but the world went nuts over the doctored photo.

It is absolutely her right to not tell the public what’s happening when they want to know. Regardless, this was more fun when it was a secret baby or a nose job. I wish her and her family the best.

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A little vibe I get - if I’m reading it right from her video - is that it wasn’t expected at surgery time, was discovered post surgery, and maybe this chemo regime is “insurance” that they got it all or to prohibit growth.

We don’t know if that’s accurate - but that’s what we have so that’s what I’ll go forward with - her word.

I hope it’s one and done for her.

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I would’ve been gutted, heartbroken, if I had no choice but to tell my very young kids that I had cancer, just be a I had to tell the entire world! Of course their friends and classmates will find out, which will make for an interesting game of telephone. My youngest were 12 when my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer very unexpectedly, we waited until we knew everything before telling them, and again waited to tell them she was not going to recover (gone in 4 months, she was a second mom to them, saw her every single day). My husband lost his mom in the same manner when he was a young teen, unfortunately no one told him until she passed in the hospital that she had cancer, definitely wouldn’t do that.

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Are you kidding me, “ this isn’t that hard”???

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Cancer is hard. What to tell children is not especially it it’s early stage. But obviously everyone sees it differently.

I know what you meant.

I recently had a conversation with my 42 year old neighbor who is battling cancer, has kids the same age as William and Kate- she and her husband have worked really hard to make sure they’re kids are ok, they’ve struggled a bit. So, it’s harder than you think.

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Obviously.

I think it’s hard for anyone to tell their loved ones that they have a life threatening condition, no matter what it is. But doubly difficult to share with your young children.

I also wonder if when in the public, and I’m not talking about actresses, that you need to announce that you are having surgery. But don’t want to announce that it’s cancer until it’s definitive. Even if it’s what you and your doctors think it is.

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I wish this woman the very best, a decent regimen of chemo and a good prognosis. When someone hears the word “cancer” about themselves or a loved one, it clearly is felt differently by all.

Her message was a good one. It seems that she felt comfortable sharing this much now, and not sooner, and that is her right.

It doesn’t matter that she has high standing in her country. She is still a person.

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I can totally understand why Kate and William wanted to wait until the Easter break to tell their kids. The age span alone is hard because a six year old hasn’t developed the abstract thinking of a ten year old. My kids would have had a million questions and I would want to know some general answers before I told them about something this big. They never would have accepted, “Mommy is sick, but the doctors are taking good care of her.” They would have said, “Sick with what? How long will you be sick? Can you still take me to my recital? Why not? Will we still go to the beach this summer? Why not? Are you going to die?” They are already dealing with their mother being away at the hospital having surgery and not being able to do what she has always done. :broken_heart:

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I’ve been refraining from these conversations, but my god the ghoulishness of the speculating and conspiracy theories online has been horrendous. But maybe the most egregious is the “why didn’t she just tell us???” or “of course people made up stupid stuff, all she had to do was tell us” like it’s any our dang business what she has or when she tells us. I don’t care who she is, I really don’t. But no woman should have to satisfy everyone’s morbid curiosity, tell people on some pre-determined timeline, or tell anyone at all.

I’ve seen so much yakking and joking and insulting and just, people having a grand old time with their FB groups and zoom meetins to trade rumors and theories and all I can say is wow. It’s a person’s LIFE we’re talking about.

Okay, off my soapbox now.

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Telling your young children that you have cancer sounds tremendously difficult to me.

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Unfortunately this is a public person who accepts public money and works in a public facing job. Although they are not elected, their livelihood receives money from the government.

A member of congress announced his health diagnosis and his absence from doing his public facing work. If he had been absent without any explanation, it probably would have become an issue.

Although in a perfect world, there wouldn’t be speculation.

The only thing I’ve been communicating is that there needed to be a crisis PR person dealing with the fallout before things got to this fever pitch.

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If this was someone you knew, how would YOU want to be treated in this situation? Think about that first and then proceed.

Just because you (the proverbial ‘you’, not anyone here specifically) would have chosen to handle this situation of Kate’s differently doesn’t mean that your way or her way is better.

I hope to God that it isn’t pancreatic cancer. My mom had pancreatic cancer surgery. It was the Whipple procedure. And if what Kate had was THAT procedure, then yeah, she’s already been through a lot. ~40% of people end up dying during that surgery because it’s so complicated (at least, that’s what the doctors told my dad just before they wheeled my mom into the OR). They completely rearrange some of your GI tract.

Or consider it what she has is colon cancer or had to have part of her colon removed. She’s probably dealing with an ostomy bag. Very difficult!

Almost 5 yr ago, I had a double mastectomy and a couple of months after that, reconstructive surgery. That was no walk in the park. Couldn’t lift my arms above my chest for weeks. I couldn’t even open a car door on my own. Had drains for 2 weeks afterwards, collecting fluid that was draining out of me. Weekly appointments at the cancer center to have more saline injected into the tissue expanders. the whole time the drains were in? No showering. Taking a bath? Nope, can’t do that either. Had to go to physical therapy for about 6 weeks in order to prevent frozen shoulder because the pain was so bad on one side whenever I tried to raise my arm.

Meanwhile, my kids were 13 and 11. I waited awhile before I told them of my diagnosis. Waited until I knew for sure what the diagnosis was and what treatment plan I wanted to go with. You know what? The surgery was on D24’s 13th birthday. You know what she told me afterwards? She was afraid that her mom was going to die in the OR that day on her birthday.

So you know what? Kate and William can take all the frickin’ time they want to explain it to their kids. It’s really really really hard. Some of you (the proverbial you out there in the universe) truly have NO idea how emotional and awful it is to have to explain to your minor children that you don’t know if you’ll be cured of this thing that could kill you.

My vote is that we give Kate and her husband a little bit of grace and allow them to figure this stuff out.

</end soapbox>

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Oh, what a sad conclusion to all of this. How very difficult it must be for her to have to think about the “whole world” while also prioritizing her own kids.
It does give one pause about the actual role and benefit of a monarchy. As taxpayer-funded employees (basically) of their subjects, they absolutely do have a duty to disclose certain information. But perhaps a drastically whittled down monarchy - or no monarchy at all - would be a more humane idea. It does feel like Kate just got chewed up and spit out by a system that simply wasn’t up to the task of properly shielding her. I feel bad for contributing to speculation. I feel bad that she may have been forced to reveal this news before she was ready. If I was British, I would also be pissed off that so much money is tied up in this family when it is clear to me that what Kate needed most at this time was to be able to slip back into private life, something which she is unfortunately unable to do as the Princess of Wales.

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