Almost. We were told it was not prostate cancer, but that it was discovered during a routine prostate check.
I hope the Princess gets through Chemo and makes a full recovery. She’s in for a difficult journey.
It will be even harder with the press demanding details. I’d suggest telling them to bugger off and give the family privacy. Not sure that will do any good.
I give you a thumbs up.
Her job, as a royal, involves public service. The taxpayers foot the bill for that and are, in a sense, her boss. When I am absent/unable to work for an extended period I have to give my boss a reason. When a “senior royal” is unable to fulfill their duties likewise they need to give their “boss” a reason.
The extent of that explanation is debatable, but “I am ill and undergoing medical treatment and that’s why I’m not traveling around, cutting ribbons, bringing publicity to charities, giving speeches, etc.” is legit. Unfortunately, the trolls out there are going to be nasty about it, like they’re nasty about everything.
And while Kate is a mother of young children she is not, at 42, a “young mother”. She’s an adult. And, for the sake of her children I hope that she does in fact explain to them, to the extent that they are able to understand, that she is seriously ill with a dangerous disease because I believe it would otherwise be cruel to keep them entirely in the dark. Especially in the case of a public figure where the paparazzi and the trolls will probably find out what exactly is happening and broadcast it to the world whether they should or not. Better the children heat this from their parents than the press.
Millions of women have been in the position of “and may or may not have the chance to watch her children grow up”, Kate is not special for being in those shoes right now. Many of those women have to explain to other people, like employers, that they are sick with this disease or that condition in order to get a medical leave or job modifications. The extent to which they have to talk about it does vary with the job they do. Since Kate is in a very public job yes, the public is going to know about it.
Personally, I think “I have cancer. I’m getting treatment. I’ll get back to work when I’m better” is sufficient. The public doesn’t need to know more than that (though of course there will always be those who want more). Come to think of it, that’s more or less what the King said - I have cancer, I’m getting treatment, I’ll resume my public duties when I get better. (Apparently, both he and Kate are doing some non-public things from home. Good on them if they fell up to it.)
My guess is a toxic level of trying to keep up appearances. It’s like how there are women who insist on getting cleaned up and applying makeup just after they give birth before a picture is taken of them and the baby - they don’t want to show how they really look (or how the baby looks) at the moment of birth. Which is not to imply that practice is inherently toxic, just that it’s a thing - there are women who never want to be seen or photographed without being done up.
Kate has a reputation of always being well-put-together. Things like major surgery and chemo tend to make you look crappy or awful. It may have been as simple as wanting to look as she usually does. In this case, that was the wrong choice. Trying too hard to look normal backfired.
Or maybe her PR staff is incompetent.
She could, but she is not obligated to do so.
I’m not sure why that seems to be bothering you. Sure, I’m curious just like a lot of people but I don’t feel she should be obligated to give further details.
I mean, if she did state she has breast cancer then there will be the social media trolls make rude comments about breasts or lack of them or “fake titties”. If she names the cancer at all trolls will just make up means comment. They probably will anyway, but but keeping it non-specific makes it harder to target the specific issues she might be having in regards to her illness.
A hysterectomy is a part of treatment for a number of things. She might have gone in for a hysterectomy and, afterward, a pathologist said “hey, I found some cancer in this tissue sample”. So… maybe she had one, maybe she didn’t.
even tho they have 3 kids I would think a princess needing her baby-making parts removed would be something they wouldn’t want to know …, especially with the rumors that Will wanted at least one or 2 more and she shut him down with an air of finality
It’s weird to me that some people are still in rant-mode, or even angry, over this.
The facts are this: there was speculation about why Kate had cancelled events, and not even been seen in public, for a while. Kate was not ready to go public yet, for various reasons such as wanting to pick an appropriate time to tell her children.
Telling the press nothing would not have stopped the speculation.
Telling the press a generic “she’s ill” would not have stopped the speculation.
And if you don’t end the speculation the attempts to contact her and those around her would continue to increase.
So they tried to just fob the press off with a photo. If they had done a decent job of it it could have worked for a while, but they didn’t.
And yeah, of course it was dishonest, but dishonest to an understandable level given there were no obvious options and the truth was going to be revealed very soon anyway.
To me, knowing the seriousness of the situation I don’t care about the photo any more (to the extent I ever did). Let alone still holding a grudge over it.
Yes, this.
I have not seen any ranting. Do i read the wrong newspapers?
No, I’m just surprised she didn’t give less detail. “The princess is undergoing medical treatment and is not expected to be available to do her job for at least 3 more months” is more like what you owe your employer.
I don’t think the dishonesty, such as it was, was even related to the illness. The same kinds of edits were apparently made to a photograph the princess took of Queen Elizabeth II with her great grandchildren in 2022, which was released to the public in 2023. I think she’s just in the habit of combining a couple different pictures together to get the best version of each kid, and she got burned by it because she didn’t realize how closely lunatics would be looking for clues that she was actually dead or in a coma or divorced or on the moon.
That’s interesting. I’m a little shocked she doesn’t know the rules for news images, and that no one in the crown’s publicity team prevented her from doing this.
Fwiw, i have a similar family photo, where we took about 6 posed photos, none of which had a good image of everyone, and asked a friend to combine them. But i only gave copies to the people in the photo, not being a public persona and all that.
I hope she has someone who can give her good advice about dealing with the press now. She’s going to need it.
I saw a picture of Kate and William at a theatre gala some months ago. She was cradling her tummy with her hand, means nothing but it gave an impression of pregnancy, or a tummy ache.
Now it reminded of a friend who experienced a molar pregnancy which is not a baby but a medical condition that can lead to complications and cancer. Basically a tumor that grows from a non viable pregnancy. Treated with chemotherapy. Rarely requires a hysterectomy,
It was barely a century ago but long before the current press culture and social media. Only a couple of people were involved. And the details still got out. You would think that by now they would know the details will get out. They can’t stop it they can only package it properly.
That’s completely normal usage for the UK.
That sounds unusual to me; people might say ‘s/he has a tumour’, but cancer is not normally given the indefinite article like that, unless it’s a more detailed discussion that includes something like ‘s/he has a form of cancer called x’
Maybe it’s a regional thing (Philly area), but this usage—“I have cancer”—is the normal one. “I have a cancer” would be understandable but odd.
Yeah, if someone says ‘I have a cancer’, I feel like it means they are right about to show me a lump or something.
The thing about cancer is that every kind is very specific and very different. Saying “I have cancer” is like saying “I have a virus” or “I have an infection” or “I have a broken bone.” It really doesn’t tell us much.
Sometimes, that’s because you don’t need to know much. In the specific case of cancer, probably more so. If someone wants you to know what type, they’ll tell you; if they don’t tell you, it’s probably because they don’t feel that they wish to discuss the details with you.
Here’s something I just thought of. Given it was found during abdominal surgery, it seems plausible it’s ovarian cancer. If it is, there’s a very high probability that she has a BRCA1 mutation. (Among women without a BRCA1 mutation, only about 1% develop ovarian cancer, while among women with the BRCA1 mutation, the probability is over 40%. My wife died of ovarian cancer and we didn’t know she had a BRCA mutation until after her cancer was diagnosed.) That would mean that each of Kate’s children has a 50% chance of having the mutation, putting them at high risk for future cancer, especially the girl. That may be something they don’t want the public to be discussing just yet, especially before the children are tested.
Oh Lord, that makes me even sadder…