Crown Princess Mette-Marit to undergo pulmonary rehabilitation

Crown Princess Mette-Marit will undergo pulmonary rehabilitation next month, the Norwegian Royal Court has announced, forcing her to cancel her schedule for October.

In a statement shared by the Royal Court, it’s revealed that Crown Princess Mette-Marit will not carry out any official engagements except for unavoidable misses, like the official luncheon for the Opening of the Storting at the end of the month.

The future queen will carry out planned engagements this week, and is expected to resume her royal duties in November.

NRK, the Norwegian national broadcaster, spoke to a doctor who shared that pulmonary rehabilitation is a method of training the body to need less oxygen.

The doctor, Olav Kåre Refvem, a lung specialist, said that “If you are very unwell, you often cannot benefit from the treatment. If you are only slightly impaired but have a certain reserve, this can work well. You probably don’t do it until you have symptoms that make it difficult to function in everyday life.”

Crown Princess Mette-Marit was diagnosed with chronic pulmonary fibrosis in October 2018.

At the time, she said: “For a number of years, I have had health challenges on a regular basis, and now we know more about what these are in. The condition means that the working capacity will vary. The Crown Prince and I choose to inform about this now, partly because in future there will be a need to plan periods without the official programme. In connection with treatment and when the disease is more active, this will be necessary.”

Her royal schedule has been constantly adjusted to accommodate her treatments, and in the past year she has been on sick leave several times related to her diagnosis. She resumed her treatments last October and had a reaction to the side effects of the medication she was taking.

In an interview to mark her 50^th birthday in 2023, she said of her diagnosis: “There is much that is painful and difficult and tough about it. At the same time, there is something very nice about it, because you meet yourself very much. You have to take yourself much more seriously. And then you have to slow down, which I have done a lot.”

Earlier this year, Crown Princess Mette-Marit gave an update on her health, revealing that her illness had progressed and that “her daily routine changes more quickly than before. This means that changes to her official schedule may occur more frequently, and at shorter notice than we are used to.”