The Duke and Duchess of Clarence

Chapter Twenty-Six: Hospital Admission

17 January 2024

Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales was admitted to hospital yesterday for planned abdominal surgery. The surgery was successful and it is expected that she will remain in hospital for ten to fourteen days, before returning home to continue her recovery. Based on the current medical advice, she is unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.

The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate. She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.

Kensington Palace will, therefore, only provide updates on Her Royal Highness' progress when there is significant new information to share.

The Princess of Wales wishes to apologise to all those concerned for the fact that she has to postpone her upcoming engagements. She looks forward to reinstating as many as possible, as soon as possible.

Kensington Palace

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York House

The news had broken that morning, the Palace trying to keep people from worrying about Catherine's health; her desire for privacy being most important during this time. 

No one wanted to admit that things might have been a bit more serious than they were admitting, Catherine having suffered with her health quite a bit in the last year. 

There had been a hospital visit in December that the Palace had tried to keep from the front pages but that didn't stop the rumours from spreading about her overnight visit. 

Adeline and Simon had stepped up where they could taking on the three Wales children in an effort to make things easier on Catherine and William as they dealt with what was going on. 

It was hard watching Catherine go through her bout of ill health, knowing that there was nothing more that they could do to help and hopefully the treatment that she was receiving would help her. 

The fact that Catherine would be in hospital for two weeks had certainly been a source of talk since the announcement had dropped that morning with people quick to try and guess what Catherine was having done. 

Adeline stared out of the window at the grey sky, a frown on her face as she thought abut everything that was going on; it was clear that 2024 wasn't going to be a good year for any of them. 

It wasn't only Catherine that had been having a bad time with her health, Charles during his regular health check had discovered that he had an enlarged prostate and was going to be getting treatment. 

That announcement would come later today, knowing that there was no way they could hide the fact that the King would be going into hospital himself. 

At present her father and Camilla were up in Scotland on a retreat, he would be returning to London in a couple of days' time and was expected to enter hospital by the end of the mouth for his own treatment. 

It was expected to be a short stay, Charles was in good spirits when Adeline had spoken to her father and she knew that he was doing his best to stay positive. 

Then there was also Simon's mother, the news having been broken the day before and it was one that they had all hoped that they weren't going to hear again since she had been doing so well.