King Charles III’s goddaughter India Hicks was recently diagnosed with skin cancer amid the monarch’s own battle with the disease.
Hicks, 58, shared her diagnosis via her Substack on Tuesday, December 2, revealing that ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday she received test results from her “recent skin cancer operation” that were “not great.”
“Not dramatic-movie-scene not great, but just unsettlingly not great. The kind of news that makes the world blur slightly at the edges,” she explained. “The results showed a worryingly fast-moving patch of cancer in my lower calf.”
Hicks, an interior designer and writer, continued, “I reacted the way most people do: a strange mixture of calm practicality and a little private terror.”
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The former model revealed, “You tell yourself you’re fine, you make tea, you answer emails, all while a small internal voice is whispering, what if it’s worse than we think?”
India — whose mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, is a first cousin of Charles’ late father, Prince Philip, and a House of Mountbatten descendant — went on to explain next steps, which includes surgery. (Lady Pamela, 96, is also the oldest living descendant of Queen Victoria and was the late Queen Elizabeth II’s lady in waiting.)
India told her followers on Tuesday that she found a surgeon in Miami who performed Mohs surgery, which is a procedure that “involves cutting away thin layers of skin. Each thin layer is looked at closely for signs of cancer. The process keeps going until there are no signs of cancer,” according to Mayo Clinic.
“The procedure itself was only relatively uncomfortable,” India, who was a bridesmaid at age 13 for Charles and the late Princess Diana’s 1981 wedding, shared. “You sit there with an open incision in your leg while they whisk the tissue to the pathology lab. And then comes the hardest part: waiting.”
India described what went on in her mind at the time, saying, “You feel fine, you’re chatting, you’re scrolling your phone, and yet everything hinges on what’s happening in another room.”
Once the results were in, India said she received good news. The doctors told her “this time” she was “lucky” and clear of the cancer.
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The procedure and the positive outcome came just before the Thanksgiving holiday, which she was excited to celebrate with her loved ones.
“I love the gathering, friends around the table, the loud laughter, the happy chaos,” India, who splits her time between Cotswolds, England, and Harbour Island, Bahamas, wrote of the American holiday.
India married her longtime partner, David Flint Wood, in 2021. The couple share five kids: Felix, 28, Wesley, 27, Amory, 26, Conrad, 22, and Domino, 18.
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India’s cancer diagnosis is the latest one for the royal family and their inner circle. Buckingham Palace announced in February 2024 that Charles, 77, was diagnosed with cancer and was currently undergoing treatment.
The king’s specific type of cancer was not disclosed, but the palace confirmed that he doesn’t have prostate cancer after having a procedure to treat a benign enlarged prostate in January 2024.
Charles’ daughter-in-law and Prince William’s wife, Princess Kate Middleton, announced in March 2024 that she had been privately battling cancer as well.
After undergoing chemotherapy and stepping away from her public duties for a brief time, Kate, 43, revealed in January that her cancer is in remission.
