Updates on the Princess of Wales

She seemed poised, but perhaps this hit her very hard and it was something she needed to deal with. Everybody reacts differently to terrible news.

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I know I would fall apart.

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I also want to say that the cancer journey we’ve been through in our family was not a linear process.

It seemed that every appointment brought new and more complicated challenges. More treatments.

I was fond of saying that the doctors only gave news one bad thing at a time. Easier to digest I guess.

I want to thank those who are commenting. I feel my opinions and thoughts processes changing as I’m hearing more and more life experiences from the great people here

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I have one friend who had breast cancer who was extremely public (via FB) about it. I have another friend who had breast cancer that I was completely unaware of until she posted a photo of herself ringing a bell (I think that signified she had completed treatment).

It never occurred to me that one way was right and one was wrong. Or that one was better than the other. It was the way that was best for each of them. I cannot say what I would do.

While Kate and William are public figures they have no fundamental role in the running of their country. Even if they did, I wouldn’t see the need to be specific.

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I know. This was non-life threatening, but when I was diagnosed 15 years ago with an acoustic neuroma I fell apart. I discovered I am not a strong person when it comes to that type of news. Possibility of deafness, or facial paralysis just paralyzed me. I didn’t function well for a week. I can’t imagine having to deal with the public. I couldn’t even deal with it myself.

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It’s got to be difficult to deliver that news to children of any age. Possibly even worse for adult children who understand the seriousness.

I have a couple of friends who chose to share every detail of their respective cancer journeys on FB. Kudos to them because I’m sure it helped others who chose to remain private during their battles. I hope I never have to make that choice.

I never believed any of the wild conspiracy theories (especially the crazy plastic surgery ones). Normally she would have rights to privacy but as a popular public figure and an important part of a monarchy (the next Queen) people, especially those in her country, expect reassurances as to her health - and all these wild theories and rumors are evidence of how quickly things can spiral out of control when official updates are confusing and vague.

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Look, I’m not paying her salary, and neither are you, or the rest of this country who have lost their dang minds. And even in the UK, before anything else, she’s a human being, not just a public servant. Not just her job.

I can’t believe I find myself even talking about this because I’m not a Royal watcher, but the lack of humanity shown pretty much universally these last couple months has been really depressing to watch. And close to inescapable.

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I see your point and agree with everyone’s overall sentiment that she should be left alone. But Lloyd Austin’s secret hospital stay is a good example of how this same thing does apply in the US. If someone has an actual role in running the government, then there is some responsibility to disclose certain things that could be incapacitating to them. Kate does not have such a role, but she is for all intents and purposes treated as if she does.
The relationship between the RF and the press is causing actual harm to people. And Kate is not the first. This should be cause for concern.

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How awful. I know that I was one of the loudest voices saying that KP was hiding something, but even I wasn’t expecting this. She has three little kids :broken_heart:

May she have a good prognosis and be allowed the privacy she needs. I hope that even the sleaziest bottom feeder tabloids make it clear to the paparazzi that no one will buy their pictures now so that no one has any incentive to hide out in their bushes.

I do hope the Royal Family learned a lesson here: don’t lie. This isn’t 1952. If they had just stuck with their original statement: “She’s has major surgery and don’t expect to see her for months”, they wouldn’t have put themselves in such a pickle. It was the doctored Mother’s Day photo that set off the frenzy and all the conspiracy theories. If they hadn’t released that photo, she could have had more time to disclose this on her terms and timing. (I do think it’s unrealistic to think that such a public figure could keep this a secret indefinitely.)

Anyways. Life is fragile and precious. Hug your kids.

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Exactly. Completely different in his case

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Maybe the Mothers Day pic was their response to “yikes I am not going to be out in public by Easter like we stated/promised” - and they felt they had to give a crumb to the curious onlookers.

Not saying it was right but trying to put myself in their shoes a bit.

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I’m wishing Kate and her family the best, with hopefully a complete recovery.

There have been several comments made about the royal family being paid to serve as public figures, and thus they have a higher level of obligation to be publicly forthcoming about aspects of their lives. I’m not an expert on the BRF, so looked up the amounts that they’re paid.

  • The total Sovereign Grant for 2022-23, amounted to ÂŁ86.3 million (2021-22: ÂŁ86.3 million), which is made up of a core grant of ÂŁ51.8 million which funds official travel, property maintenance and the operating costs of The Sovereign’s household. The core grant equates to 77p per person in the UK.
  • The Sovereign Grant for 2022-23 includes an additional dedicated amount for Reservicing of ÂŁ34.5 million.
  • The total Sovereign Grant for 2022-23 of ÂŁ86.3 million, which remains unchanged from last year is equivalent to ÂŁ1.29 per person in the UK.
    Source: Financial Reports 2022-2023

It appears as though household costs (including staffing of the houses) is included in the core grant of 51.8 million pounds leaving about 35 million pounds/year as payment for the royals.

The royal family seems to contain:

  • King (Charles)
  • Queen (Camilla)
  • Prince of Wales (William)
  • Princess of Wales (Kate)
  • Duke of Edinburgh (Edward?)
  • Duchess of Edinburgh
  • Duchess of Gloucester
  • The Princess Royal (Anne?)
  • Duke of Kent
  • Duke of Gloucester
  • Princess Alexandra

I have excluded the Sussexes (Harry & Megan) and the Duke of York (Andrew) since they are no longer active royals (source for royal family). I am assuming the others are still active, but obviously this is the guess of an uniformed American.

It appears as though there’s about 35 million pounds for 11 people. I doubt they all get paid equally, as I suspect the more prominent members get paid more, but for the sake of argument, let’s say they get paid the same. That means that each member gets paid more than 3 million pounds/year to go to ribbon cuttings, and award presentations, and other such things throughout the year. And they get to live in a very nice house that includes paid household staff.

So, does an annual salary of 3 million pounds paid by the English people entitle the public to more information? The royals had already put forth a statement that Kate was going to have surgery and then wouldn’t be back until after Easter. If the royal family had kept to that statement and gone with the never complain, never explain tradition, then I don’t think the media circus would have gotten as bad, unless it was after Easter and she hadn’t shown up yet. It seems that some super-enthused folks were thinking up conspiracy theories, but that the vast majority of the world was ignorant of them until the household started releasing doctored images or potentially staging misleading videos.

Essentially, I think this thread was a lesson in bad public relations, particularly with respect to crisis management. I don’t think that the vast majority of the public was demanding greater info about Kate’s health or asking for proof of life until there were some bad PR decisions made that seemed to give some evidence to the conspiracists. Because of that, I do think that the royal family needed to make additional disclosures, as the video posted here did well, because they are paid by the government to be public figures.

This does not diminish how hard it is to deal with an extremely scary diagnosis, particularly when there are young children in the picture. But just as it’s hard on families when their doctor parent has to leave family events early because they’re on call or a lawyer has to work late because of a case they’re on, so too does everyone in the royal family. There are definitely negatives to being in the public eye, but they have also been handsomely paid to be so.

That being said, with taxes totaling less than 1.50 pounds/person in the UK, I do now have a better understanding of the statement that the royals are good for business/tourism in the UK, as the houses would likely still need to be publicly maintained anyway, and they get a ton of attention worldwide by people who still are interested in a royal family.

Once again, wishing Kate and her family well.

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Yeah, I had the same thought, too – they were hoping to buy some extra time with it. But c’mon. They’re supposed to be professionals. They should have known that it would backfire.

Not to mention the fact that ‘they’ (by which I mean KP, or Kensington Palace) is as of this date STILL claiming that it was Kate who photoshopped the Mother’ Day photo.

SOOO – the woman who we know now was just diagnosed with cancer AND healing from a major abdominal surgery is the one to blame for the PR disaster?

The Royal Family’s continued willingness to throw their women (and even when they’re as ill as Kate apparently is) under the bus is absolutely appalling.

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You’ve got it right on the nose - a cancer diagnosis is only the beginning. It’s like a wild beast, constantly trying to eat you alive just when you think you have a handle on it.
My kids were 13 and 15 when I had to tell them. My preliminary diagnosis was surgery and radiation and hormone therapy. They were devastated and I assured them I’d be ok. Fast forward to post surgery when I found out they found another tumor and it was the cancer they had told me weeks prior I should be grateful not to have. I went from crying about radiation to preparing for another surgery and 6 months of chemo. I had to devastate my kids all over again.
Cancer is a reality I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

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There are times when you hate to be right. I suspected from the start that it was a big abdominal debulking surgery for something like ovarian cancer, or a Whipple for pancreatic cancer, because of the long hospital stay, followed by a long recovery at home. Who cares now what they knew, when they knew it, how long they chose to keep it private.

Royal they may be, but when cancer calls, they’re just another young family dealing with a horrible disease. Hoping the treatment is effective, wishing her a complete cure.

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I just saw this on CNN:

CNN understands the Prince and Princess of Wales wanted to wait for their young children to be out of school for the Easter holidays before making the announcement.

Understandable.

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What is “preventative chemo?”

I’ve heard the term used for chem done after surgery, when the docs feel like they got it all but want to be sure there aren’t any stray cells left.

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I would assume that they’re referring to chemo done after surgical removal of the primary tumor, in order to decrease the chances of recurrence or metastasis.

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