Whoa. Hope he beats it!
Can we change the national anthem to “docs save the king”?
They aren’t saying what type of cancer it is but at the same time the statement says “His Majesty has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation”… 
Poor Will.
CNN.com has an analysis piece up about how stretched thin the royal family is now to keep up with their usual public appearance/charity support/ribbon cutting/etc. duties.
indeed.
Apparently, it’s prostate cancer.
Palace says not prostate cancer. Something else that was found when he was in hospital.
He’s gotta be thinking, “Thanks for hanging on, mom!”
If it were prostate CA, he coulda just pulled a US Secretary of Defense and not told anyone!
If I went in for work on my prostate, and the doctors found cancer down there that wasn’t prostate cancer, I’d be more worried than if it WAS prostate cancer.
In the grand scheme of things we’re not that far removed from the time the king’s doctor deliberately injected him with a lethal dose of cocaine so his death could be reported in the morning papers instead of the evening edition, so this degree of openness is really a step forward.
What’s “CA” here?
Cancer
Yeah. My dad went to have a hemorrhoid removed, and found that it was actually an anorectal melanoma tumor. He was dead six months later.
Well said there @Kent_Clark. I tried to write a similar thought awhile ago and got all wrapped up, so abandoned the post.
Colorectal cancer? Significant metastases of prostate cancer into the nearby bones? Pre-operative MRI of the general area shows pancreatic tumors?
We’ll find out in due course.
Yeah, as I said in the other thread, the prognosis would have been better if it HAD been prostate cancer, which is generally treatable or may not even need treatment, and the real risk is if it metastasizes into other forms. That’s not what happened to Charles, but the point is that many other forms of cancer are less treatable.
Back to the general topic. CNN posted a graph of the British royal family tree, and while I’m a strong advocate of the system of constitutional monarchy where the head of state is explicitly non-political and has important emergency reserve powers, much of the pomp and circumstance around British royalty is pretty silly. That graph, for instance, shows the line of succession down to at least 24 levels, which I’m sure is far more than was ever provided for in the case of actual political leaders with actual power.
Hey was my name on there?
I think I may be Royal.
(Others say no, just a normal PITA)
I wants my tiara. And Corgis.
Really. I figured he’d stay monarch a couple years to put on a good show then abdicate – he never seemed too keen on the idea of being king to me – but dropping dead? That’s a bit much.
Think 24 levels is bad? Some genealogist has worked out the entire line of succession right up to the last person in line - a German woman who is almost 5000th in line. (The succession is limited to the descendants of Sophia of Hanover, which is why there is a limited pool of successors.)
The difference being that succession is not really an important aspect for elected offices - the US, where it seems in most elected offices a successor serves the rest of the term, is different here from most other countries where in elected offices on death in office or resignation the successor is simply elected in short order (in executive positions a designated lieutenant having held the fort meanwhile).
Anyone can do that arithmetic. It’s not as though the Palace makes anything official of it, indeed they’ve been at pains to limit the official attention to the immediate line of succession. Thus, the “Counsellors of State” appointed to deal with state business if the sovereign is incapacitated are the next five in succession, almost the same as those covered by the legal requirement for the sovereign’s approval for marriage.
Anyone else on any such list would only be of interest to the family and the curious.