What is it like to be totally helpless — not be able to feed yourself, move around or even communicate — yet at the same time, be fully aware of all that is said and done around you, to suffer indignities and feel pain?
Darcie Statham knows. She has been there from the time she was in her early teens until well into her 20s.
Now, several years later, the Westlock woman shares the story of those dark days of her life, and the story of the happier days as a child before that. And she shares how, through the miracle of God, she is today an active adult, very vibrant, very alive, very active and very outspoken.
Darcie shares all of this in a book she has recently written and published. The book is titled, Live Out Loud!
“That’s my motto,” says Darcie, and for those who know her, indeed, it is truly is.
“The book is 94 pages in length, and will sell for $20. It tells of her incredible journey of life, and includes several full colour photos of her days before, during, and after this dark period of time.
It will be available starting Tuesday, April 26, when Darcie holds a book launch at Someplace Else in Westlock, 10612 -102 Street, from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.
As well as signing her book and chatting with any and all who attend, Darcie says there will also be snacks, refreshments, entertainment, and a silent auction of items throughout the day and a live auction at 7 p.m.
One of her friends, Matty Graf, inspired by Darcie’s incredible journey, has written a song about her, and will sing that at the launch as well. Another friend, Judith Garcia, will also sing.
Darcie says any profits over and above the costs of printing will go to Nehemiah Construction Ministries, which have been drilling water wells in a remote area of north western Kenya.
The eldest of five children, Darcie’s journey began in Saskatchewan. At six weeks of age, she and her parents, Winston and Marlene, moved to Calgary and at age three, the family moved north to a farm near Flatbush.
“My childhood was awesome,” says Darcie. “I had great parents, great brothers and sisters.”
She says her brother Ryan helped her the most when she was sick, and is referred to lots in her book.
On the farm, she had horses, rode lots, and everything was pretty normal for a young girl growing up on the farm.
But at 12, things began to change, and her health began to deteriorate. She was diagnosed with encephalitis, an acute infection and inflammation of the brain.
“It was encephalitis, but different,” Darcie says.
At 16, she was in the care of the Glenrose Hospital in Edmonton. By 17, she was in a wheelchair, and at 19, she was totally paralyzed, unable to do anything for herself.
To most around her, she appeared, as the saying sometimes goes, the lights were on, but nobody was home.
But there was somebody home.
Darcie says throughout the entire time, she was totally aware of all that was going on around her, could feel pain and knew all that was happening to her. It was during this dark period of her life, she also suffered many indignities, but of course, helpless to do anything.
As she says, she was totally aware of all that was going on, and of her helplessness. Darcie knew the diagnosis wasn’t good. She would never walk or talk again, and was confined to a life that was anything but good. In fact, she wasn’t even expected to live. Though family and friends prayed for her, things weren’t improving.
“I came to realize and believe I wouldn’t be healed until I went to God myself,” she says.
And that’s what she did, and through His miracle, she began the slow process of healing.
“I got out of my wheelchair 11 years ago,” Darcie says. “As my strength gained, I gradually got my voice back too.”
As tough as that part of her life journey was, she has gotten around it.
“At the end, you have to have a sense of humour, or you will be bitter all of the time,” she says. “Basically, I just chose to put it in the past.
“I wrote the book as a therapy for what I have gone through, but not originally with the idea of having it published.”
Writing down her thoughts of her life’s journey has given her more healing of the past than she could have done otherwise, she feels.
When the idea to have the work published came, she says an aunt of hers read and edited it, and cried.
In recent years, Darcie has done mission work with natives in B.C. and locally in camps in Alberta, including Camp Living Water locally.
“In the future, I would like to become a preacher, and I want to continue to do mission work,” she says.
Also on her agenda is the hope to organize a kids camp, and she would like to build a hospital in Africa. She has been to Uganda twice, and worked with the Red Cross in a war zone, so has had some interesting experiences.
In her spare time, she has many hobbies, cycling, painting, sewing, knitting, making jewellery and has even gone back to babysitting. All very normal, but things she couldn’t do at all a dozen years ago.
“I’m only better because I’m stubborn,” she laughs. “I don’t say can’t.”
