Meet the Leeds Beckett University student blinded by rare cancer with aspirations of a career as a music producer

Now 21, he was just 18 months old when he developed the rare type of cancer that mostly affects babies and young children. However, the impact of the illness is something he still lives with today, as Louis is completely blind.

“I developed neuroblastoma when I was about 18 months old,” he told the Yorkshire Evening Post. “I had a swollen eye and my parents took me to hospital - they had a look and said yeah, it's neuroblastoma, stage four. I had two sets of chemotherapy - one of which was on my adrenal gland, I had that taken out. The other was on my nasal cavity. The placement in the nasal cavity crushed my optic nerve, which is how I became blind. It also affected my hearing, so I'm partly deaf too.”

The long-term effects of his brush with neuroblastoma have failed to dampen the spirits of Louis, who harbours ambitions of a career as a music producer. “I'm a musician now - I've loved music since I was in hospital really,” he explained. “I was always tapping on stuff and then I got my first drum kit when I was five. I got my first keyboard when I was about eight and never looked back. I'm in the final year of my music production degree at university. I've started to get work as a music producer and mix engineer and I love it.”

Being blind, however, does not come without its difficulties – Louis lost his sight so young that he does not know what his family looks like. “I've lived life,” he said. “It is hard, being blind. It's tricky but not for the reasons people would think. It's simple things, like being able to walk into a room and say 'hello everybody' and know who is there. Being confident enough to go in and do that is hard for me.

"I don't know what family looks like, which is a weird thing because I've lived with them all my life. I have ideas but I don't know what they actually look like. I'm not a very confident person and I don't know if my blindness contributes to that. Socially, at school, I never felt like I was quite fitting in with everybody, because of the blindness. That wasn't anyone's deliberate intention to make me feel like that, but I was blind.

"Some people may not have met a blind person before and might not know what to do. People are like 'oh, how do I work with this?'. I went to mainstream primary and secondary schools in the local area, and the staff at both were fantastic. I have a guide dog now, called Kizzy, and I've had her for the past four years. She's great and we've on loads of different adventures together.”

Louis showcases his musical prowess as a member of Unity, a choir for survivors of childhood cancer funded by Leeds Hospitals Charity. “Unity is a pleasure to be a part of,” he said. “I love those guys so much. It's a family unit. We just have the best time together and I adore all of them.”

He has also interacted with some of his musical heroes, and even performed Coldplay hit ‘The Scientist’ with one of the band’s guitar technicians using the actual guitar used to perform the song on stage. “I went on a touch tour at a Coldplay gig and went backstage and actually got to look at the instruments they use,” Louis said. “I was backstage and telling one of the guitar techs I couldn't play guitar but wished I could. He got the guitar Jonny [Buckland] uses on 'The Scientist' and said 'we're going to play this now'. He said he was going to do the chords and I was going to do the strumming and that we were going to play 'The Scientist’.”

With Louis targeting a career as a music producer, his Coldplay experience may not have been his last time making music with a industry heavyweight.

Louis has shared his story as part of Leeds Hospitals Charity’s World Cancer Day stories.