Made In Chelsea star Louise Thompson shared with followers the ‘urgent’ reason for spending Christmas Eve in the hospital.
The 35-year-old reality star has been open about her health with her followers and last year revealed she had undergone a colostomy due to her ulcerative colitis, resulting in wearing a stoma bag.
In 2021, Louise almost died after giving birth to her son Leo after an emergency caesarean section and suffered from PTSD and postpartum depression.
The media personality regularly attends hospital check-ups, but her most recent appointment, where she ended up receiving a proctoscopy (an anal and rectum exam) ended up falling on December 24 – the ‘maginitude’ of which only hit her in the moment.
Uploading an image of her in a hospital gown, Louise wrote to her followers: ‘Looks dramatic but it wasn’t. I had a proctoscopy today. It’s like a colonoscopy but not as invasive as I don’t have a colon so there isn’t very far the camera can go.
‘Still bloody awkward and a tiny bit uncomfortable but fentanyl is a wonder drug.’
In a follow-up post, she added: ‘These appointments are so important and they managed to fit me in quite urgently so I jumped at the offering of a 24th December date, then when it came around I realised the magnitude of it being Christmas Eve.
‘Despite all the chaos of what I’ve been through, I still think we are incredibly lucky to have the NHS, which NEVER clocks off in case of emergencies.’
Finally, she joked about having a ‘nice little Christmas Eve camera up my bum’ as she thanked the NHS for ‘keeping our country ticking along and keeping our loved ones alive’.
What is ulcerative colitis?
According to the NHS website, ulcerative colitis is a long-term condition where the colon and rectum become inflamed.
Small ulcers can develop on the colon’s lining, and can bleed and produce pus.
Symptoms include recurring diarrhoea, tummy pain, extreme tiredness, loss of appetite and weight loss.
Last year, Louise’s fiancé Ryan Libbey shared heartbreaking details of how difficult the months after Leo’s birth truly were – leading to Louise being put on ‘suicide watch’.
‘Those first 10 months, when I say it was bad, I mean I don’t think it could have been much worse at home in terms of the environment we had to just exist in,’ Ryan told Josh Patterson on the Exercising The Demons podcast.
Explaining the mental toll the three surgeries took on his partner, he said: ‘It just completely unhinged her as a person.
‘So we had daily visits from care visitors but they were also on suicide watch because she was saying things like “I just cannot get through this and I don’t really want to”.’
Meanwhile, Louise has shared the challenges she has faced adjusting to life with a stoma bag.
In April, she told her followers of the ‘horrendously debilitating’ stoma leak she endured while on her way to a medical appointment in London.
She was forced to ‘hobble to the nearest hospital’ and ended up spending an hour locked in loo ‘covered in a mess’, eventually ‘bursting into tears’ after the whole ordeal.
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