Louise Thompson posts heart-wrenching goodbye to fiancé Ryan Libbey as he prioritises his mental health with new challenge

Louise Thompson has shared a heart-wrenching goodbye to her fiancé Ryan Libbey as he heads to Morocco to take on a new challenge. 

The Made In Chelsea star's fiancé Ryan recently revealed he taking on The Marathon Des Sables - nine marathons across the Sahara Desert.

Ryan revealed his motivations for the mammoth challenge is to try and 'move past some of the traumas of the last three years' - after Louise nearly died giving birth to their son Leo in 2021. 

Taking to Instagram on Saturday, Louise shared a collection of adorable family snaps as she said goodbye to Ryan before he flew to Morocco.

'Good luck daddy,' she wrote. 'We hope you have an amazing time on this big adventure and we can't wait to see you on the other side. Proud of ya.

'We all have different ways of coping with life's challenges… and I believe that this is your way of showing us that you are prioritising your mental health. That means you are prioritising us too.

'Well done you. And you do it with such grace. No build up. No pre amble. No glory hunting. Just getting it done. Zero complaints. Rather you than me. Godspeed. x'

As she prepares to solo parent their son while Ryan completes the challenge, Louise added: 'Ps. We got this Leo !'

Taking to his Story while in the airport, Ryan shared reshared the post and wrote: 'My motivation.' 

Revealing the challenge earlier in the week, Ryan shared snaps of himself training in a field.    

'A few months ago I started running consistently on a Sunday morning with some friends,' he said. 'We started with a 4 mile run and added a mile each week. We stayed consistent for a while, working our way up to the 15 mile mark. 

'Inevitably, life pulled us all in different directions; time spent in hospital with loved ones, weddings, baby due dates creeping up and more of the stuff we all go through in life. 

'The training hasn't been perfect and to be honest I know I'm not where I should be physically ahead of a challenge like this. But there's been a hell of a lot of progression along the way and it's been fun to spend that time with friends. I've never been much of a runner, but here I am about to run 9 marathons across the Sahara Desert.

'This race, The Marathon Des Sables, it's not a competition for me. It's a chance to clear my mind, to exist in the vast emptiness of the desert for a moment in time and move past some of the traumas of the last 3 years. I'm excited to take my first step in the sand.'

Louise has been in and out of hospital ever since being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2018.

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic bowel condition where the colon and rectum become inflamed and small ulcers develop on the colon's lining, which can bleed. The condition has no cure, but can be effectively managed with time.

In a post to mark Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week, Louise detailed her struggles with the condition since her diagnosis and wrote about her 'tough time'.

She bravely opened up about how her symptoms became worse amid her mental health struggles because she didn't 'really care if she died'.

In 2021, her health complications worsened when she nearly died while giving birth.

The former reality star spent a month in intensive care with 'serious complications' while her son Leo had been treated in the adult ICU after the birth.

Louise endured an agonising labour that culminated in an emergency caesarean.

Medics took three hours to staunch a haemorrhage, during which she lost three-and-a-half litres of blood: more than three quarters of her body's volume. She later found out it was because her womb had torn.

After five days, mother and son were discharged, only for Thompson to haemorrhage at home two days later. This time it took four hours to stop the bleeding and she lost five litres of blood, requiring several transfusions. In the aftermath she suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder that left her struggling even to look at Leo, let alone engage with him. She begged Libbey for 'a pill to end it all'. 

Another haemorrhage followed a few months later. 

In December 2022, Louise revealed she had been diagnosed with Lupus - one of the chronic autoimmune conditions, where the body makes antibodies against itself and starts to attack it. 

The TV personality held back her tears as she explained 'constantly navigating' her different health issues has left her wanting to cry.

Just one month later, Louise revealed she had undergone a 'small operation' amid her gruelling battle with Asherman’s Syndrome.

Asherman's Syndrome is a condition where scar tissue form inside your uterus. The scar tissue can build up, decreasing the amount of open space making some women infertile

Meanwhile, she was still suffering from the chronic bowel disease ulcerative colitis. In January last year, after months of diarrhoea requiring '18 to 20 trips to the loo' each day, crippling pain and excreting blood, she had her colon removed. 

The first that Louise's 1.4million Instagram followers knew of this was last month, when she posted an image of herself with a grey pouch attached to her stomach, commenting 'Hey, look I've got a stoma!'

Louise regularly documents her ongoing health battles in candid posts shared to fans, and Ryan has revealed how his mental health suffered watching Louise in such pain. 

For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. See www.samaritans.org for details