Louise Thompson reveals her son's surprising reaction to her stoma bag
From Made in Chelsea fame to launching numerous wellness brands, Louise Thompson has spent the best part of the past decade documenting her life online for all to see.
Her 1.4 million followers have witnessed everything from her toxic relationship breakups on primetime TV to hearing her talk candidly about her struggles with alcohol, so they know – or at least, they think they know – everything about her life.
As part of a larger Women’s Health My Body My Story interview, which appears in the June issue of the mag, we caught up with Louise back in March where she opened up to us about having a stoma bag, a month before she shared her health news on Instagram.
‘I've been through a lot in a short space of time, relatively speaking. I would have felt really rubbish about having a stoma bag attached to my body four years ago,’ she told us. ‘It would have been the most life-changing, dramatic thing that had ever happened to me, but because of the birth trauma, this feels much more manageable.’
Louise experienced a traumatic birth in November 2021 with her son, Leo – something she opens up about in detail in her new book, Lucky (out on 23 May 2024). Following the birth, she experienced a multitude of medical complications – including PTSD and poor perinatal health, which exasperated her ulcerative colitis. (She was diagnosed with the chronic inflammatory bowel disease in 2018).
‘It is really significant,’ she said, when talking about her recent stoma bag operation. ‘I mean, I’ve been really, really ill and I have had major surgery, which was an emergency, and it was awful. Spending time in intensive care and waking up with something that resembles a sea anemone, that's hugely swollen, sticking out of your stomach, that I hadn't had a chance to research before at all.
‘I guess it's part of me now ... it's part of my journey. But I still maintain that I feel really grateful to be in good health. And, actually, the hope is that by removing my entire colon – which I've had confirmation literally yesterday that it really needed to come out because it was disgusting, and it was the entire colon that was really inflamed, so it was definitely my best option – hopefully that means that now for the rest of my life, I can live flare free and work on building back up my strength and feeling better.’
Louise said she’s actually dealing with her new accessory really well. ‘I feel good, I really do,’ she said. ‘The stoma team are amazing. I've seen them every week since the surgery. I think they're quite shocked by how well I'm responding to the change. It's just like I'm wearing a grey bumbag, like an accessory. I've adapted really quickly.
‘It's funny like Leo will be like “boop” (pointing at the stoma) when we’re lying in bed and be like “mummy poo”. And I'm I like, "how do you know that? How are you so intuitive and you’re only two?"
‘I haven't had a bath yet and I have no idea how I'm going to swim – but I’m focusing on the good. I’ve been too scared to drive and I’ve been in an immense amount of pain. The pain is inconceivable and that really is the worst thing.’
Louise Thompson's autobiography, Lucky, is out from May 23.
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