I think they did and she appeared in an act with the plaster on her leg. She also visited Holland and so on. There´s a need to arrange certain things for this kind of events. I believe I remember she took like a golf car or something like that and she went with Queen Beatrix in it, so in my opinion they considered the distance long enough for her but not so long or convenient for a conventional car plus all security measures this brings. I mean there´s tons of things to organise that do not appeared in photos and a significant amount of work for other people. That´s why they inform of these issues,
It´s as plain and simple as this: if they would have informed about the schedule surgery (the British Royal Household gave information about Chamilla having an hysterectomy, for instance) everyone would know she´s in hospital and they would understand her not appearing visiting the victims yesterday or visiting the victims yesterday with very heavy make up. It´s simply that. But there was no statement UNTIL rumours went wild, why so much secrecy?
It´s easy to understand that if you cannot go to work and you say you are sick, you are sick. What´s the problem?
Like I said before, the Jordanian house hadn't said when exactly Rania broke her leg, I only knew that when she showed up at an engagement. It's perfectly understandable that the SRF didn't announce Letizia's procedure yesterday right before her visit to the hospitals, it would be unrespectful for the victims and their families since her procedure might turn out to be the talk, not the visit, the victims or their families (I know how pathetic some of the TV shows are in Spain).
Letizia did go to visit the victims yesterday. The procedure had been done for a week, she looked well enough to do the act. If she didn't, the SRF probably would have given the explanation yesterday. I didn't notice at all her makeup was heavy, her mother-in-law also wore makeups. Except for a few talks on the internet, I didn't see any rumors in the media until the announcement, otherwise it would have been lots of press articles on her possible surgery.