OSLO, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit is expected to undergo a lung transplant following a deterioration of her health in recent months, the royal household said on Friday.
The 52-year-old wife of Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, a chronic disease that causes scarring in the lungs and leads to a reduced oxygen uptake.
Tests performed in recent months showed a clear negative development in the crown princess’s health, the palace said in a statement.
“I had hoped to keep this illness in check with medicines, and the progression has been quite slow, but now it’s gone more rapidly than both I and the doctors had anticipated,” Mette-Marit told public broadcaster NRK.
It has not yet been decided when she will be placed on the transplant waiting list, the palace said.
“We are approaching the time when a lung transplant must be performed, and we are making the necessary preparations so that it will be possible when that time comes,” Professor Are Martin Holm of the Oslo University Hospital’s pulmonary unit said in the same statement.
Crown Prince Haakon said the family had noticed the change in Mette-Marit’s condition.
“We have seen that she is struggling more to breathe,” Haakon told NRK in the joint interview with his wife.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere praised the crown princess for being open about her condition and said it could help others suffering from similar problems.
“I think all of Norway wishes her all the best, and that she gets good treatment and a speedy recovery,” Stoere told NRK.
Mette-Marit was 25, an unmarried single mother and a commoner when she met Haakon at a music festival in 1999, the beginning of an unlikely royal romance that started with a media furore and ended up winning over the bulk of the nation.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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