Strap in. This is going to get messy.
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I don't have a lot in common with Kate as was Middleton, now Princess of Wales. She's tall and slender and I'm anything but. She married actual royalty, a prince who would eventually be king; and I married a prince among men, who's a complete champion.
Now this poor bloody woman is again being dragged through the wringer for Photoshopping an image meant to show she was in good shape. A thousand conspiracy theories have been born. And now she's having to apologise for trying to put her best face forward. Reminds me of the time I misspelt my children's last name using the Dymo labeller. Pointless technology betraying us time and time again.
Kate and I do have this in common though. We each had three children. And after the birth of those three children, we both had what's discreetly called abdominal surgery. Now it's not a competition but between us, our six kids weighed about 23 kilos. That's quite a lot to push out, believe me.
Now Kate's thing could be anything. Could be a tummy tuck. Could be some kind of stomach thing. No-one has any idea, nor what the extent of the surgery was. Could be a prolapse and the palace can't bring itself to use the V word.
But let me tell you what happened to me. I don't think I ever described it as abdominal surgery but then I'm not a palace gal.
At one of those routine pap smears to check for cervical cancer, the results came back. Funny little cells everywhere. When I say funny, I don't really mean funny. I mean, could get scary. My GP was unworried but my gynaecologist freaked out in the way that learned medical types freak out. Quietly. Firmly. Within a week, I was booked in to have a hysterectomy.
Those scary cells are not the only reason to have a hysterectomy. For those of you who don't know about these, it's an operation to remove, at the very least, part of the uterus. It can also remove the whole thing, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and other stray bits of related tissue. You can do it keyhole style or the old-fashioned cut in the lower abdomen and whip it out that way. Related, some of us who've had hysterectomies have given birth to three big babies in rapid succession and take the opportunity to have a vaginal reconstruction so it doesn't feel like your insides are falling out. Ah, the wonders of modern medicine.
Anyhow, look, I should have been thrilled. I'd had deranged times-of-the-month for years, there was no way - no way - I was having any more children. I was on the verge of a prolapse anyway (that's where the little cervix pokes its nose out in a way that should never happen). For those of you unfamiliar with the cervix, it's not meant to be seen from the outside.
It wasn't those cells making me feel weak and queasy, it was the whole damn thing. And the prospect of losing my ute wasn't cheering me up. It made me anxious, upset and totally out of control. In the middle of all this my sister became very ill.
So here's how it was meant to go. Whip the lot out through keyhole surgery. Recover well. Be dancing in two weeks. Reader, that's not how it turned out.
I was off work for six weeks; pasty and bloodless for weeks after. I haemorrhaged twice including once at a school play. Dizzy, faint, grumpy. Work colleagues, darlings all, rang to ask how I was going. I was due for four weeks sick leave and my amazing employers gave me six and even then I was not, shall we say, peak. Instead, peaky, grumpy, exhausted.
I asked Kirsten Black, professor of gynaecology at the University of Sydney and a fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians, who was at the National Women's Health Summit at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday. I also made it clear to her that I was not asking her to diagnose the Princess of Wales from the other side of the globe because a) unprofessional and b) ridiculous.
But I called her because I was sick to death of the whole Where's Kate vibe. The woman is recovering from abdominal surgery so leave the woman in peace.
Black says recovery really depends on the way the operation is done. Keyhole or vaginal, then the recovery can be much quicker. Lower abdominal incision can be four to six weeks. Much bigger abdominal incision can six to eight..
"If it's right down the middle, it can be hard to recover from, six weeks minimum," she says.
Plus she's got a bloke she knows - a bloke - who had major abdominal surgery six weeks ago.
"It was hard to get back on his feet."
Her advice? Leave Kate alone.
For all we know, Kate's had major major surgery. That could take her much longer than expected to recover from. Today it's been six weeks since she left hospital. Let's give this poor woman until Easter, which is what she asked for in the first place. At least until Easter. Even though she has home help, she is still the mother of three children. And her life is spent under the microscope, the telescope, the telescopic lens and the public gaze.
Speaking of the public gaze, there are no photos of me from that time and no photoshopped images of me a few weeks after my abdominal surgery.
If anyone had asked me for pix, I would have told them to bugger off. Shame Princess Kate can't do the same.
Jenna Price is a Canberra Times columnist and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.
Jenna Price is a Canberra Times columnist and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.
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