Author who lost all limbs has amazing story

Merlyna Valentine hasn’t let losing all four limbs stop her from pursuing life and inspiring others with her story.

“I’m very a faithful person and I believe that all the strength I needed was inside of me,” Valentine said. “But that God is who actually made it all possible… helped me to figure out to move forward and how to focus on what I had and not on what was missing.”

Valentine’s signing party for her first children’s book, called “Daisy The Extra Special Flower,” is about a flower that loses four of its petals. It remains brave, strong and confident, and remains an important part of the garden.

It’s also her story.

In 2007, a kidney stone caused septic shock that required amputating her hands and then soon after both her legs below the knee.

“That first nine months I was basically inside the walls of my bedroom and only leaving on Fridays for wound care,” Valentine said. “I learned that at this point, I still had both hands attached and they were slowly dying off. As I was attending therapy, I was learning to walk again.”

What she concluded was that God left her here to tell her story.

“I was going to use that adversity to actually inspire others,” Valentine said. “My story started to become an inspiration to total strangers and I knew then I had a purpose even greater than I imagined.”

Despite this medical tragedy, she returned as principal of St. Rose Elementary School by 2009 and with the deepened commitment to teach her students to never give up.

“What I learned was that what happened to me was not going to define me,” Valentine said. “I needed to deal with the change. I embraced the change.”

Since she retired from the St. Charles Parish School System, she has released her own self-published children’s book, as well as the adult version of her story.

“It was my way of sharing this story with children on what happened to me,” Valentine said. “I needed a way to connect to children and help them to see what happened to me in a kid-friendly way.”

It was a necessary next step for her, particularly as a passionate educator.

“I think education is in my DNA,” she said. “I know I was born to be an educator. My mother was an educator and I loved children from a very young age. It gives my life so much purpose.”

At her recent book signing at Southern Latte’ with more than 200 people in attendance, she reveled over the public’s response with a steady stream of people throughout the afternoon who wanted books signed, photos taken and, most importantly, children who had questions for her.

“It was a moving experience to connect with some children I had not met before,” Valentine said. “They typically ask what happened and I say I lost my limbs because I was sick at one point. One kid asked me, ‘Did it hurt?’, and I had to be sure I was sensitive as to how much I shared and some asked how long it took to write again and learn to walk again.

“I told them I was excited about my new life and they asked if Daisy was excited, too.”