According to a royal aide, “it was exhausting” for Queen Camilla as she balanced royal duties and her husband King Charles’ cancer diagnosis last year.

Following a procedure for a benign enlarged prostate in January 2024, the King announced his cancer diagnosis on February 5. Even more devastatingly, the next month Kate Middleton also announced her cancer diagnosis following a procedure in January. (The Princess of Wales announced this past January that her cancer is now in remission.)

“It would have been draining for a woman half her age,” the aide told Newsweek of Queen Camilla handling the delicate balance. “But I think if one is to attempt to see a benefit from that period, actually it did give a chance for the media and the world to see some of the work that she had always been doing with greater interest and clarity.”

A particularly difficult moment was Camilla’s January 31, 2024 royal engagement at a London cancer center, after she had privately learned that her husband of nearly 20 years had been diagnosed with cancer, but a few days before it was announced to the public.

“She had to undertake public duties knowing that the King had been diagnosed with cancer, including a visit to a Maggie’s center in London, and yet not be able to show the slightest flicker of vulnerability when she went there knowing what she knew privately,” the aide continued, adding that it was “astonishing” to see how the Queen dealt with her public life while also reckoning with “her own private anxieties.”

Next month, Charles and Camilla are due to head to Italy for a royal tour, and, though the King’s cancer treatment continues, “I think everyone is looking forward to a year of a full schedule and uninterrupted engagements,” royal photographer Samir Hussein told Us Weekly. “Certainly the King is eager for that to be the case, and it’s very encouraging the amount of jobs he has been able to take on despite his treatment.”

Camilla’s son Tom Parker Bowles told The Daily Express last year that the King’s “treatment is going well,” and of his mother, she was doing well also, adding, “She’s tough, my mother.”