There’s been some talk in recent weeks about King Charles, cancer and his chemotherapy. Some people theorized that his chemo treatments were done, but that’s false. If you were paying attention throughout the summer and early autumn, Charles continued to travel to London for treatments, largely under the radar. I wondered why Buckingham Palace wasn’t trying to score PR points about it – “king comes to London for treatment, rather than making his doctors come to him” – but then I realized that the palace doesn’t want people to focus too much on Charles’s treatment or the fact that he’s still receiving chemotherapy, eight months after his diagnosis. Well, there was no way to avoid the conversation given Charles and Camilla’s upcoming trip to Australia and Samoa. They’ll be out of England for 11 days… which means Charles will skip one of his weekly treatments.
The King’s doctors are allowing him to ‘pause’ his cancer treatment in order to fly to Australia for a high-profile royal visit next week. The 75-year-old monarch will undertake a significant official visit beginning on October 18, taking in Sydney and Canberra, immediately followed by a State Visit to Samoa in the South Pacific where he will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
The Mail understands that His Majesty will continue with his ongoing cancer treatment right up until he flies but that his doctors are happy for it to be briefly stopped while he is away. The King will then pick up with his treatment cycle as soon as he returns to the UK.
Charles,75, was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of the disease in February following prostate surgery and has been receiving weekly treatment ever since. However the news that the King intends to ‘squeeze in’ a 30,000 mile, 11-day door-to-door trip in-between treatments is both good news in terms of his health – and also emphasises the commitment to duty he has shown since he was first diagnosed. Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
King and his wife, Queen Camilla, are embarking on a packed schedule with up to ten engagements a day between them during their royal visit – and have only one ‘down day’ of rest. Sources stress, however, their programme has been organised in close consultation with his doctors and is ‘mindful’ of his health. Engagements have been organised to ‘prioritise’ his continued recovery. His entourage will, as always, include a travelling doctor – standard practice for the head of state.
The long-awaited trip is hugely significant as it is his first visit to a Realm, of which he is head of state, since becoming King and his first CHOGM as Head of the Commonwealth.
I keep going back and forth on whether we’re being told the truth about how Charles is really doing. The message from BP is, in so many words, that chemo has knocked Charles on his ass but he’s optimistic and so are his doctors. And yet, the message from Prince William’s office is that Charles is at death’s door and William will be king any day now. So… I don’t know. My guess is that this overseas trip is going to be really difficult for both Charles and Camilla and it will probably be one of the last “major trips” of Charles’s reign.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- King Charles III departs after his visit to the Forsinard Flows Visitor Centre in Forsinard, Highland, which was recently given World Heritage Site status, to meet with Flow Country Partnership staff, local residents, families and young people. Picture date: Wednesday July 31, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story ROYAL Charles. Photo credit should read: Jane,Image: 894572004, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jane Barlow / Avalon
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- Southport, UK, 20 August 2024: Britain’s King Charles III meets with members of the local community during his visit to the Town Hall in Southport, northwest England, following the 29 July attack at a childrens’ dance party. Alice Da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King, and Elsie Dot Stancombe were all murdered during the knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party that also left another 10 people injured.,Image: 900119743, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: PAUL ELLIS / Avalon
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- King Charles III during a visit to the Royal Horticultural Society of Aberdeen’s 200th Flower Show at Duthie Park, Aberdeen. Picture date: Saturday August 31, 2024.,Image: 903558336, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jane Barlow / Avalon
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- King Charles III during a visit to the Royal Horticultural Society of Aberdeen’s 200th Flower Show at Duthie Park, Aberdeen. Picture date: Saturday August 31, 2024.,Image: 903558575, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jane Barlow / Avalon
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- Day one of Royal Ascot, Ascot Racecourse. Featuring: Queen Camilla Where: Ascot, United Kingdom When: 18 Jun 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Arrivals at day three of Royal Ascot races. Featuring: King Charles and Queen Camilla Where: Ascot, United Kingdom When: 20 Jun 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III attends a Sunday church service at St Mary Magdalene Church. Featuring: King Charles III Where: Sandringham, United Kingdom When: 28 Jul 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III at the Mey Highland Games. Featuring: King Charles III Where: John O’Groats, United Kingdom When: 03 Aug 2024 Credit: Cover Images
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- King Charles III inspects the Balaklava Company, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, at the gates of Balmoral, as he takes up summer residence at the castle Featuring: King Charles III Where: Balmoral, United Kingdom When: 19 Aug 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
“doctors are allowing him to ‘pause’ his cancer treatment in order to fly to Australia”
wtf? I am not a doctor, but how is it okay to pause the cancer treatment for more than a week for work? Is this normal?
And to travel to the other side of the planet, too.
Pauses in chemo do happen.
My mother had a course of chemo that was scheduled to last nearly a year. Her doctors allowed her to pause the treatments over Christmas and New Year so she could celebrate them and her birthday which is in late December. They also paused when she needed gall bladder surgery.
The pauses just pushed the end date back a few weeks.
The chemo worked and she’s now in remission.
I’m not sure that her doctors would have been enthused about her flying to the other side of the world during an ongoing covid pandemic though. 🫣
That seems unwise to me.
@Jas, so happy about your mother. Best wishes to her. Pausing for more than a week seemed weird to me, but if it makes no difference to the treatment, I understand the argument.
Felicitations about your mother. I am so happy for you both. And I hope you take care of yourself now.
Cancer survivor here… the pausing is very NORMAL. When chemo affects one’s white blood count, bloodwork has to be done prior to the next treatment to ensure they have bounced back to normal before the next cycle can resume. Patients also negotiate “breaks (i.e. postponing a treatment ) in order for patients to attend life events or take vacations — its all about balancing one’s physical and mental health needs. This also ensures that Chuckles doesn’t not get fatigued or immunocompromised during his trip. Chemo is often measured in # of cycles — and a cycle is the number of days between the administering of the chemo. Some chemos are every week, some are every 3 weeks… it just depends. So Chaz will still get the same # of cycles… its just drawn out over a longer span of time. Given that he’s been in treatment this long REALLY makes me concerned that his prognosis is not good. (That’s just my feel on the situation — I could be 100% wrong). Cheers!
@EasternViolet, first of all, congratulations. Thank you for the info. I have never heard about pausing the treatment before.
“Given that he’s been in treatment this long REALLY makes me concerned that his prognosis is not good.”
I thought of the opposite. If they are allowing him to go to another side of the world, the treatment must be going well. But, you never know, I guess.
Yes am a cancer survivor and I did have chemo stopped for a week for some blood work they weren’t happy with. They take blood every time before your chemo session and they go over the results before they will administer the chemo. They are very careful.
@sevenblue (Thanks!) and @ Susan Collins congrats to you as well!
The reason I hedged with “things aren’t good” — is that there is more of a sense of letting people LIVE during chemo with some quality of life – so chemo can be postponed as I said for life events etc. And yes for heath reasons (usually white/red blood counts being too low). Here is my thought process on why I don’t think things are good. When he was initially diagnosed, a good case scenario would project how many cycles over a set period of time. Let’s suppose it was predicted that he’d be done at the end of Aug, so there would be good enough time for some recovery between end of treatment and the CHOGM trip. However, testing is always done to confirm end of treatment or continuation of treatment. We learned in Jan that he had cancer — and I think he was getting chemo before then. 10 months is a pretty long period of time, for someone to get a “1 and done” (1 round of chemo — which is the full # of cycles). I think he’s on a 2nd and more “quality of life” pauses make sense… because a realist might say that the chemo will be part of the rest of his life. I hope that makes sense!
@Easternviolet. I kinda think you may be right about this being quality of life chemo. He has been on it for a long period but some cancers need for it to be long but we don’t know what cancer he has.
It certainly seems an odd decision to make- makes me think maybe his prognosis is dire and the chemo is kind of a hail Mary, so missing one might not be as controversial as we might think from the outside.
From my POV… its a very **common** and reasonable decision. I feel like we are getting better info about Charles. Yes I think he went for weekly treatments to London. Yes he is postponing for the Australia tour because he won’t feel like shit for the entirety of the visit. The news isn’t shocking at all.. from my perspective – they divulged more info than the public was expecting.
It’s not uncommon to take a break. I’ve had to pause my chemotherapy too, the oral chemo was making me really, REALLY sick. I’ve been off for a month and will restart six weeks of infusion chemo shortly on a weekly basis instead of every three weeks.
My prayers are with you.
First…only. Just my gut instinct. I hope I’m wrong.
Have to agree with you here. Only two reasons for the level of secrecy re: his Dx – that it’s 100% patently false and a bid for public sympathy after being outed as a vile racist, or it’s 100% true, and his prognosis is dire, but they’re trying to give a false sense of hope to project stability b/c the man’s only 2yrs into his reign.
Additionally, I think the arrangements they’re talking about here are a HUGE mistake to make for a man of his age and “condition”. ONE day off in an eleven day tour? At HIS age? It’s utter madness. And HER age? I mean for cryin’ out loud, Cloppy will need four days off alone to sober up from Aussie wine country just to be able to find the stairs onto the damn plane.
I get that he’s got a lot of ideas in his head, and he’s a busybody. Fingers in all sorts of pies.
HOWEVER. The ableist AF courtiers should know and do better. The man’s had the immune-dysregulating virus Covid multiple times. He’s supposedly got cancer now (which would have been fanned on by his exposures to Covid, as it was with his mother).
Sensible people, people who supposedly value Cluck and the work he does for the Kingdom – need to prioritize programming periods of rest in that itinerary – throughout the itinerary.
Anything less is just elder abuse, bordering on regicide.
I’m just chuckling at the mental image of “Cloppy” trying to get on the plane 🤣🤣🤣 I see her in that huge white hat falling over her eyes 😂
@JanetDR I’m thinking similar, along the lines of Joanna Lumley in AbFab, doing the “posh drunkard jet set” thing.
It could be his choice to do this before he does die, particularly the Commonwealth heads. William has already said he is not interested in the Commonwealth.
Tiara, that is something that I haven’t heard studied. How does covid effect cancer? I heard about aids/hiv but cancer seems a concern as well. They probably have studied it but don’t want to cause a panic.
Yikes he looks rough. The fact that this man is on deaths door and still chooses to treat his son and daughter in law like trash is quite something. Smh pure evil
@Polo
This is how I feel everytime I see him now. He looks so rough. I go back and forth on whether it’s the cancer itself, or the chemo.
He looks older than Jimmy Carter.
Is he looking to go out on a high note by traveling to Australia? If he wants to go out on a high note then he should pick up the phone and call Harry and beg his forgiveness for all the sh*t he has caused him and then get the gutter press to shut up. That’s how you go out on a high note.
Australia was where he did.6-12 months of school back in the mid 1960’s. Makes perverse sense its where he’d want to do his final trip I suppose.
I have only good wishes to everyone dealing with cancer and their loved ones.
My support to the every day patients who are getting thru.
I’ve lost most of my immediate family to cancer.
KC has the best Drs available. Most of us do not.
If he is pausing his treatment against Drs. advice in order to carry out royal duties, he is a damn Fool!
Maybe he is traveling to Oz for an experimental treatment that they are trying to keep quiet tho.
Believe me you don’t just stop against a doctor’s advice, you have to have a damn good excuse. In my case it was because the chemo was making me horribly ill and I was close being hospitalized as a result. This Australia trip has been in the planning stages since before he was diagnosed so no, you don’t go on a diplomatic trip to get “experimental treatment” that could possibly have awful side effects.
No article has specified Chuck’s treatment as chemotherapy. He could be on immunotherapy or another targeted treatment. He’s not looking well but he seems to be on something with milder side effects than most chemotherapy. Just saying.
As boring as Charles the Bland is, he is still working more than Workshy Willie.
Chuck isn’t looking well but yet he’s still doing the job and travelling to the other side of the world to do it as well but a certain someone can’t work at all (although it does seems as if she can travel to warm luxury locations for a vacation).
He’s aged a LOT since he took the throne and am not sure its the pressures of the job and family issues thats responsible. I think he’s sicker than they are telling us and thats why William looks soo rough, he knows the throne is going to be his sooner rather than later and that knowledge has aged him (also explains why Keen and Ma look pleased with themselves).
So they’re pausing his treatment. And they’re sending a doc along who is hopefully a real doctor, someone well versed either in the treatment of Tampon’s particular cancer, whatever that may be, or someone who’s a specialist in geriatric care?
As opposed to CIII’s head of the Royal Medical household, who’s nearly as old as Chuck, an esoteric quack who’s a proponent of diluted tap water — shaken, not stirred — aka homeopathy.
Still no masking in public though?
I think the Palace telling the public this only raises other questions. The right thing to do was to be completely transparent about his diagnosis from the beginning.
It means he’s got a cancer that’s not curable. Stage 4, requiring maintenance chemotherapy.
missing a dose does confer risk, because the chemo keeps it in check, so to speak. but yeah, it means the public is not being told the actual truth.
It has never been mentioned that he has stage 4 cancer. I’ve been on a month-long break from chemo as it was making me seriously ill by the way, and my oncology team are fine with that. Regular CT scans have shown that my cancer is in check, no spread, and the month off is so I could build up red blood cells and platelets to give me the strength to endure a final (fingers crossed) round.
Jaded, thank you for all the info you’ve posted, & I wish you all the best as you continue treatments.
Charles is elderly and looks rough, but some of the rough look could be because we were accustomed to seeing him bloated/heavier. People often struggle to regain their appetite after surgery and his surgery/treatments may be addressing the root cause of his bloating and affecting his appetite. Treatments have revolutionized. Different types of targeted immune therapies and chemo exist now. Charles would have access to the best of the best. Some types of chemotherapy/immunotherapy continue indefinitely and on various schedules. QE held onto the crown with an iron fist. Charles was never going to have a 50 year, wildly successful, far traveling reign being crowned King as a senior citizen. Will-not was planting stories that the crown should skip Charles and go directly to him years before QE died. Charles planted stories that QE should step aside so he could be king decades before she died. The Windsors are a petty lot.
Y’all might be very correct in that William is looking so rough bc KC is not doing as well as the PR is saying.
I honestly do not think William wants to be King.
He does want power and wealth tho.
William is not strong enough mentally to hold the Monarchy together.
He might have looked forward to being King in the past but now it is possibly close he has got cold feet. Harry did say that none of them wanted the job.
in some of those photos (particularly the pink shirt/pink flower in lapel) he looks awful. Looks eerily similar to his dad – when Philip was a full 20 years older than him…
This is so strange. So Charles was in that crowded room at the reception (dancing even) when still on Chemotherapy? No mask
Cancer is rough! If Charles is at stage 3 or 4, he’s had it for a while. Pausing treatment isn’t unusual, but he shouldn’t be traveling so far due to low immunity. Charles and those around him SHOULD BE wearing masks.
I DO NOT care for Charles for many reasons, but I don’t wish Cancer on anyone.
Charles should look inward and try to right wrongs, especially with his family. Make peace between all and enjoy what time he has left.
So he’s going to go travel while I’ll, catch and spread COVID or something else, all to try and stave off losing a majority white settler colony (Australia) to becoming a republic?
Not even sure why he’s bothering to go to Oz in the first place – the monarchy are not popular there. But then the BRF have never been that good at reading the room.