In the 13 years it’s been on TV, I’ve never missed an episode of Channel 4’s Made in Chelsea , so I remember the first time Louise Thompson appeared on the glossy, vapid, but fun reality show. We were the same age (21, now 34), and, although I felt for her because she seemed too nice to be crying over love triangles with infantile, ego-centric men, she was, to me, simply a source of glamorous, escapist drama. So I was taken aback to see her in April this year post an image on Instagram of her in her usual immaculate make-up and clothes in her beautiful West London home as usual, but with one extra accessory: a stoma bag.
Thompson, as it turns out, has suffered such agonising physical and mental health over the past few years, that when I meet her she tells me she is surprised to be alive. Thompson says that grey stoma bag which, post-colostomy, collects her stool and has to be emptied daily, has “probably saved my life”. Six years ago Thompson was diagnosed with mild to moderate colitis, a long-term, chronic disease where the colon and rectum (large intestine or large bowel) become inflamed.
“When I travelled I’d feel extreme fatigue, but generally I was pain-free,” she says. “The scary symptom was that I would lose blood from my bum, so it was alarming but it didn’t affect how I was able to operate in life.” It was three months after she had her baby Leo in 2021 that the colitis became much more serious.
When the flare-up happened, Thompson wasn’t in .
