Does anyone else feel unnerved by the news about King Charles?

[TakemedowntoPotatoCity]

Yes I know this belongs in the Royal section but more traffic here for people feeling like I do.

King Charles has cancer, I am sure William is wondering if he will become King sooner than he anticipated. It makes me wonder too if Kate will be okay due to her recent surgery - William really needs her by his side if he is going to take on the Big Job.

Harry rushing home feels bad to me. I mean, it's good that he is coming to see his dad but it makes me feel as though it's serious - I just hope, hope it's not pancreatic cancer - but I just don't have a good feeling.

The Queen's only been gone 16 months. I feel out of sorts. Anyone else?

No, just annoyed at the potential waste of more millions of taxpayers' money on more ceremonies.

No. Sad he has cancer as a human and I do actually like him.

But resent the fact he will be getting the best care whereas poor average won't.

I don’t care about or for the RF. They’re spongers.

I do wonder whether the country can afford another state funeral and coronation so soon after the last spectable

Im sure he has an over 60’s funeral plan.

An 'attention seeker' you call him. Tell that to disabled veterans, whom he created the Invictus Games for

You care enough about them to comment here I notice

Who cares? They don’t care about you

Agree.

We are all supposed to be able to rely on the NHS, but even basic nursing care, like making sure patients eat, is so stretched. I used to think that private health was just for people who wanted more of a hotel experience and that essential care could be provided by the NHS, but I don’t think that’s true anymore.

My husband died recently of cancer in his fifties, and while the type of cancer he had meant that he wasn’t going to be cured, the treatment in many respects was awful. This wasn’t the fault of any of the individual staff. The problem was over stretched resources. So much time waiting in pain because there just weren’t enough nurses. Waiting around in corridors. Relying on hospital transport (he couldn’t travel by car at the end) that never turned up. Pleading to get tests carried out.

He received good palliative care from the hospice and Maggies was an oasis, but those organisations are charities.

My elderly father also had a different kind of cancer a few years ago and recovered, but it was a treatable cancer, so the care protocol was different, and although difficult, less traumatic. If that had been my only experience my view would be different.

I think experiences vary greatly depending on type of cancer and where you live.

He's only been in the job 5 minutes so there isn't that familiarity with him as the monarch. Plus since he's come in I dont think the job is as high profile as it was.

The Queen is a different cattle of fish. Whether you are a monarchist or not, she had been there in the background our whole lives...on TV (regularly in the news, on some Royal special (ie. Royal Variety performance), Christmas message etc.), image on coins and notes, on stamps etc. Everyone born from the late 40s onward had only ever known her as the monarch. I was watching ITV when it was announced she had died and the newsreader Mary Nightingale paused to gather herself before she said it...her voice trembled as she did. You knew something was up as it had been in the news since midday but hearing it was surreal..to think she was gone. This was a very old woman not related to us, and yet, whether we like it or not, it had an impact on all of us.

Actually, the statistics on cancer survival rates in the UK are pretty poor compared to many other countries because the time taken for diagnosis and then treatment is so long.

In defence of the NHS and the great unwashed, my OH has been having investigations for an enlarged prostrate and has every test known to man in the kidney, bladder, prostrate area as they do them as a job lot so if KC has one of these cancers then it would have been picked up in the routine scans etc that everyone gets. No privilege necessary.

Presumably you do realise that many people couldn't afford to speed it up by going private? Are the lives of those people less valuable?

The issue isn't just about waiting for treatment in any case. The King's cancer was detected when he went in for elective surgery for something else. Millions of people are having to wait far longer than they should for such surgery at the moment, meaning that detection of many cancers is likely to be delayed. In a lot of cases, they will find it too late.

I was seen by GP, referred to consultant and had an mri within 5 weeks. All nhs.

DS needed a scan- seen that week, follow up a month later.

3 different hospitals involved- very grateful for the care.

My dad went to GP with a suspicious mole on Wednesday, he was seen by consultant on Friday and has an appointment for blood tests on Monday. It depends what you have as to how quickly the process progresses.

And yet my mum, who has had breast cancer three times, went to her GP last year with a lump and waited six weeks for a referral to the breast cancer clinic. It took nearly three months from the GP visit to the start of treatment. I don’t think it’s what you have, more like where you live - and your age.

I agree, but in my experience this is also partly down to GP’s not recognising cancer symptoms, and also to the stupid practice of requiring patients make separate appointments to report different symptoms. In my late DH’s case, lung cancer. He had several different symptoms and when reporting them to the GP he was told one thing at a time and to make a separate appointment for ‘other conditions’. They were all part and parcel of the same thing - shoulder pain for example, which the GP treated for weeks with painkillers, as a trapped nerve. It was - the tumour was the thing trapping it.

The GP didn’t connect the dots with the different symptoms so the cancer wasn’t picked up until he collapsed with pneumonia - less than two days after being examined yet again by our GP and told his chest was clear.

On admission to hospital the A&E doctor was really angry - told me it was one of the worst chest infections he had ever seen and asked why we hadn’t sought help. He clammed up when I told him our GP had seen him a couple of days earlier. My DH was placed on a ventilator and a CT scan later revealed a large lung tumour which had spread to his bones and was inoperable. He died a week later without regaining consciousness.

One of the things that stuck with me was being told by the consultant that this is by no means an isolated incident, and that many cases of cancer are picked up only when the patient is admitted for something else. I will never fully trust another GP as long as I live. And nearly seven years later the notice reminding patients ‘one appointment for one condition’ is still up there.

I do wonder whether the country can afford another state funeral and coronation so soon after the last spectable

It'll be afforded no doubt. But I remember thinking at his coronation that people might end up thinking very differently about the validity of expensive pomp and ceremony depending on whether we got another couple of decades until the next one or not.

I feel for anyone who has cancer. It’s the blanket coverage that is getting me 48 hours on. It’s constant. I get its news but it’s the volume of coverage in every bulletin. The constant picking on Harry again this morning then Charles and Camilla in a helicopter to Sandringham.

The press release which said they were trying to avoid speculation has done just that.

A man has cancer, so do many, many others. Let’s just get on with our day now.

Much of the media coverage feels as though it’s been generated by AI or the cast of ‘Just a minute’.

This is pretty typical of the BBC wen the Queen died we had weeks of her being dead on the news noting else mattered apparently and according to the BBC we were all.devastated and in mourning.

🙄

Yep, imagine William taking on the "Big Job". All that smiling and waving, I've heard (don't know how true this is) that sometimes he might even have to shake hands with people.

Totally agree OP, poor wickle Willy will need all the support he can get. I hope Kate is up to it, maybe she could ask one of the waiting staff to pop an extra pillow in the Royal Chambers to help him sleep better.

It's an absolute tragedy.

I recognise so, so much of this.

Some cancers are easy to diagnose in their early stages and there will be a protocol for treatment to slot into, and if you are lucky targets that will make treatment faster.

Other kinds of cancer are more difficult to spot. My personal bugbear is the guilt trip on the recorded message when you call the GP, asking if your appointment is urgent.

Nope

Although really shoulder pain + tiredness/coughing should lead to scans/x rays to rule out lung cancer. That should be a sign that more information is needed.