Like everyone else, I don't know what kind of surgery the Princess of Wales had.
But of all the types of surgery people are taking guesses at, it sure would explain a lot more than the others.
Hysterectomy still seems to be at the top of everyone's list... which is absurd now that the situation has carried on this long. If that were true the hospital stay would not have been as long, and her husband would not have needed to bow out of royal engagements for a significant period of time. At the very least, there would be a video message from her looking alive and well by now (which would go a long way toward shutting down some of the sillier rumours). Hysterectomy is a surgery women generally recover well from these days. If that was the surgery she had, even if she chose not to disclose it, there would be a lot less drama than this right now.
Here are all the reasons why organ transplant entered my mind:
1. If you're the Princess of Wales, you don't have to sit on a waiting list for surgery. We haven't seen her since Christmas, so it's likely that the precipitating medical event happened then. Why the delay? Because even if you're so important that you're a shoo-in at any hospital in the country, there still has to be a compatible organ available, and that's what she was waiting for.
2. They keep calling this "planned surgery" yet her transition to hospital seemed abrupt, as though it's not something the palace was expecting at that moment. That would be because while an organ transplant is planned, the timing is dictated by when you get told "A compatible kidney (for example) has become available... let's roll". So that's the point at which they whisked her off.
3. Length of hospital stay for a kidney transplant (again, just as an example) is 1 to 4 weeks. She was in there for two. That would be about right for such a surgery. Even if things got more complicated and she would have been a candidate to stay the full 4 weeks, considering how well they can equip and the royal residences, she could continue hospital-level care at home.
4. We have not even seen proof of life in all this time. This is very strange for the Royal family. The Queen was on her feet smiling and meeting a Prime Minister a couple days before she passed. The King has ensured that he has been seen despite cancer treatment (those glimpses might have been limited, but they have happened for a reason). Kate's total absence from view is not how they roll. Something as simple as a smile and wave from a window, or as I said before, a video message thanking her well-wishers, is all it would take to shut down a lot of rumours. If she's not even doing that, she either physically can't, or she does not look at all like herself right now. If it were an organ transplant, she would be on immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection. Those medications are big guns and can be not so pretty, and she may not want to face the world while on them.
5. With regard to all the secrecy... an organ transplant would have involved another family as well, one that is bereaved. It could be their privacy that they're protecting.
6. Prince William skipping out of King Constantine's funeral without a thorough explanation isn't just a little bit notable, it's very, very strange. I'm so annoyed when the more uppity royal commentators try to brush past that. We're not stupid, so they shouldn't treat us like we are. There's only one thing that would have pulled William away from that funeral, and that's an emergency involving an immediate family member. It can be a rocky road to recovery after transplant surgery, and when things take a turn it can all happen pretty fast. There must have been a moment that day when the concerns around her health became dire.
So there you go, there's my reasoning. I would not bet on me being right at all! There are other surgeries that I think could fit the bill, but the ones that are getting bandied about the most on the rumour mill are mostly ones I wouldn't consider.
And I don't feel guilty for speculating. They have created a void so deep around Kate's situation that you could throw a boulder into it and not hear it hit the bottom.
