Louise is half Zambian and half Moroccan, born in the UK on the 21st November 1984. Known as Lulu or Mwape to her family and close friends. Louise lives in the UK with her mother and brother and niece. Louise has an NVQ in Business administration level two and became one of the first nationally recognized band four Associate Practitioners within a clinical histopathology laboratory in 2011, whilst studying for a healthcare Science degree in Manchester. Louise relocated back to Leeds in 2012 and began running her own holistic health and wellbeing business including non-surgical aesthetics from 2015-2017 after completing further education in Nutrition and obtaining her Level 2 and 3 in Complementary and Holistic Massage Therapies. As a keen runner and avid gym goer, Louise combined the above courses with the completion of her level three personal training certification. Louise is an advocate for Sickle Cell Trait, as she was diagnosed with this rare, incorrectly classified 'benign' condition at birth and has presented with severe symptoms of the disease since the age of five years old, with her symptoms significantly worsening with age. A writer and creative since her early years, Louise loves poetry, singing, dancing, cooking, the great outdoors and running, although since her health deterioration has had to slow her physical activities down. Her first book Symptomatic: Life of A Sickle Cell Carrier An Invisible Disability - My Story, was written following the worst sickle cell crisis of her life in 2020, with symptoms and complications arising from this to today. Upon facing a lack of awareness and gross medical negligence, whilst in crisis, Louise began her own Facebook support group, which has over four hundred members in it to date, situated globally. This has spurred Louise on to push for further research and better outcomes for patients like herself who are ignored and disbelieved, who then face many secondary health conditions stemming from lack of treatment administration and in many instances instant death. Her future aims are to continue writing and bringing her many poems and short stories to life, from her many years of journaling and writing and to return home to Zambia where the majority of her maternal family reside! Read more about this authorRead less about this author