Louise Thompson and fiancé Ryan Libbey break down in tears while recounting hospital ordeal-Kitty Chrisp-Entertainment – Metro

Louise Thompson has candidly opened up about her week spent in ICU after excruciating pain led her once again to keyhole surgery.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 34, has endured a horrific few years with health complications, including multiple surgeries and long stints in hospital.

She was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis – inflammation of the lower end of your digestive system – and was fitted with a stoma bag called Winnie earlier this year. The former reality TV star also experienced near death complications after giving birth to her son Leo, who she shares with fiancé Ryan Libbey.

Louise later suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms as well as post-natal anxiety, which she has spoken openly about, and was diagnosed with Lupus in December 2022, a condition which can be incredibly debilitating.

Last month Ryan announced that Louise had been hospitalised for emergency surgery after suffering from septic shock.

Now, Louise is back on the pair’s podcast He Said, She Said after a month out of her normal routine, and has spoken about her experience in a very emotional episode.

Ryan Libbey and Louise Thompson got emotional in their recent podcast episode (Picture: He Said She Said)

Louise was fitted with a stoma bag called Winnie earlier this year (Picture: Louise Thompson/Instagram)

Louise prefaced the chat with a trigger warning, explaining that she listened to Anna Maxwell-Martin opening up about grief and it caused her stress, making her think about her own mortality, so she wanted to protect listeners going through something from the same reaction.

‘I’m happy to be back home feeling okay. My recovery has been quicker than some of my other recoveries before,’ she explained, while being interviewed by Ryan.

Louise doesn’t want people to feel sorry for her, but would like to explain to followers what happened as candidly as she can.

‘Ryan had been away for the weekend in Devon. On Sunday evening he had come back,’ she began.

‘We were in bed that night. I was in agonising pain, really bad nerve pains in my rectum shooting through into my pelvis, so in my gynaecological organs.

‘I was writing around in pain all night. At 4am I was hit with a really excruciating level of pain, this is the most pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Louise returned to the couple’s podcast after a month-long absence due to her health (Picture: Karwai Tang/WireImage)

‘It was immediately excruciating as if something inside me had ruptured. I knew from that moment this was really bad.’

Incredibly, through the pain Louise registered that she was going to need to be ‘opened up’ that night, but had recently had a spray tan, so she had a very quick shower to avoid infection.

‘I knew I was going to need open surgery, and I can’t be covered in tan,’ she said in a slightly more lighthearted moment.

‘We called an ambulance and they weren’t able to come because I could talk. My mother came and picked me up. I couldn’t sit. I was bent over her front seat screaming.

‘I couldn’t sit so I couldn’t have a canula in. The pain was shooting up to my chest, so I couldn’t breath. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.’

Louise was given opioids, though they didn’t ‘really help’ with the pain. She was then seen by a doctor, and it was revealed she had peritonitis – an inflammation of the peritoneum, which happens if tissues have been exposed to irritating or infected body fluids.

‘Peritinitus can be life threatening. It’s really dangerous. I basically had septic fluid exploding all around my abdomen,’ she explained, reflecting: ‘I don’t know how I got through the moment before being seen.’

Louise had emergency keyhold surgery (Picture: @louise.thompson)

In hospital, Louise realised she knew the faces of the team in the surgery room, and they knew hers – not from TV, but from being in this situation before.

‘I felt embarrassed this is happening, my body is letting me down again,’ she said.

‘They did a big wash out. Then I woke up and everything felt so noisy. Then I went into ICU and had a week there, with tubes coming out of me.

‘I was on my best friend Fentynol. It breaks my heart that there are people out there who have to have surgeries without drugs like that.

‘I then had a catheter coming out of my wee hole and my bum. I had three tubes coming out of my stomach. My stoma, my good old Winnie, she was fine.’

She is the older sister to I’m A Celebrity star Sam Thompson (Picture: Joe Maher/Getty Images for the NTA’s)

Louise also revealed she started having hallucinations, due to all the drugs in her system.

‘I started having these hallucinations, every time I shut my eyes I could see needles or claws almost coming through my skin. Loads of these awful sharp claws, and I couldn’t make it go away.’

The week in ICU was also particularly tough for Louise, as she couldn’t see Leo for 11 or 12 days because she couldn’t let him see her like that, and kids aren’t allowed in ICU because of the threat of infection.

‘I don’t have a concrete answer as to why this has happened,’ Louise said. ‘It’s a likely perfuration of my rectal stump. But all my falopian tubes had sort of flopped over my rectal stump.’

But the moment that made Louise really tear up while recalling her ordeal happened while she was talking about her family.

‘I’m so grateful to have a family who were able to be by my side,’ she said, welling up.

‘To listen, to feedback information which you rarely remember when you’re in the thick of it and just trying to survive. To just have people there to bring smiles, or a balloon. Or a letter. Everything just grinds to a halt doesn’t it?’

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