While Prince Undergoes Surgery, Queen Carries On with Business - East Idaho News
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While Prince Undergoes Surgery, Queen Carries On with Business

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GETTY W 060911 PrincePhilip?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1370620601634Paul Edwards – WPA Pool/Getty Images(LONDON) — To mere commoners, it might seem odd.  With her husband Prince Philip about to go under the surgeon’s knife, Queen Elizabeth II was making an official visit just 1,000 yards from his hospital bed.  Yet, she did not stop by to see the man who has been at her side for 66 years.

The queen was attending the official opening of the BBC’s new $1.5 billion broadcast center in the heart of London.  Asked by a BBC radio host about her husband’s health, she replied, “I have no idea, he has only just gone in.”

Despite his declining health and his recent pledge to cut back on his public engagements, the 91-year-old prince made seven public appearances in the last week.  He attended two dinners and a service at Westminster Abbey to mark the 60th anniversary of his wife being queen.

Apparently not wanting to miss a moment, on Thursday, Philip attended the Buckingham Palace spring garden party — 8,000 people were invited — where he reportedly was in good spirits, joking with guests.

Shortly after the party, he changed out of his morning suit and was driven to The Clinic, a private hospital in Central London. 

Philip is to undergo exploratory abdominal surgery and is expected to spend the next two weeks in the hospital.  He turns 92 on Monday.

The prince had abdominal tests last week and had been warned he would need the exploratory surgery.

According to London’s Daily Mail, a royal source said: “He has been feeling under the weather in recent days but that is because he had lost his voice.  The two are quite unconnected.  He was admitted to hospital by arrangement and left quite calmly — and without any panic — after today’s garden party, where he was on top form.”

A year ago, the prince was admitted to the hospital with a bladder infection during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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