T.J. Samson | Destination Health | April 2019

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Platteville, WI Permit No. 7 T.J. Samson Community Hospital 1301 N. Race St. Glasgow, KY 42141 APRIL 2019 Not perfect, K elly Woodhouse Falardeau is a whirl- wind conversationalist. She peppers her sentences with sounds—sometimes laughter, sometimes groans. But even the groans are good-natured. Falardeau lives in Alberta, Canada. She was liv- ing on a farm there in Edmonton when the acci- dent happened that would set the course of her life. “I was 2 years old when I was burned over 75 percent of my body,” she says. “My cousins were throwing shingles on a fire, and a spark jumped out and lit my dress on fire.” Luckily, Falardeau doesn’t remember the flames. She doesn’t remember all of the hospital- izations and surgeries that followed. “I don’t really remember my life until I was about 5 years old,” she says. But Falardeau took the physical and mental struggles caused by her scars and turned them into something positive. Where another person might have shied away from public life, Falardeau has embraced it as a sought-after speaker. And at T.J. Samson’s annual Women’s Confer- ence, Falardeau will give the keynote talk: “You’re More Than Enough.” BULLIED AT SCHOOL AND HOME School was tough on Falardeau. “I knew the kids were calling me The Scarface Girl,” she says. “It was always my dream to have a date, to have a boyfriend. But nobody wanted to date ‘the ugly girl.’” Still, Falardeau had a tight cadre of friends who supported her and came to her defense. By the time she was in high school, those friends offered her a cocoon of protection from anyone who’d make fun of her. Her home life wasn’t easy either. Her stepfa- ther made a point of ignoring her. He was ne- glectful and verbally cruel. But one day she brought home a trophy she’d won at a 4-H competition. Her stepdad told her she didn’t deserve it, and an anger welled up in her. “I was so angry, I wanted to throw my trophy at him,” she says. “But what he said really made me think. Of course I deserved it. If not me, then who?” Falardeau’s belief in herself only grew after that. She married and had three children, now in their teens. She enrolled in a program to learn how to be a keynote speaker. She learned to paint, started her own business and wrote five books—four of which are best-sellers. She also was the focus of a docu- mentary, Still Beauti- ful (also the title of her most recent book). ‘YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT TO BE LOVED’ Falardeau wants people—especially women—to value themselves. Not by how much money they make or for their appearance, but for who they are. “The other message I have is that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved,” she says. The woman who used to cringe when she passed a mirror now says she wonders who that beautiful babe is looking back at her. And in her true creative fashion, she came up with a positive acronym for the word ugly : Unique, Gorgeous, Lovable You. Keynote speaker wants women to know ‘they’re more than enough’ beautiful Kelly Woodhouse Falardeau but still

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODQ1MTY=