Yahoo News 'I was trampled by a cow, and it turned my life around - now I run my own business at 20'
Growing up, Darcie Rowlandson always knew she was different.
Navigating life with dyslexia, she felt unsupported in the education system and left school in Year 9, just as the coronavirus pandemic hit. But she says the timing of leaving school was beneficial to her journey, and the 20-year-old from Inskip was able to land herself three jobs in the local area.
Darcie worked at two dairy farms whilst completing her GCSEs and began working closely with the animals on the working farm. She even purchased two calves herself and reared them alongside her studies.
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Although she was enjoying her work, a few accidents drastically changed her career trajectory. She told LancsLive: "I was bringing one of my cows in from the field, but I had it on a halter.
"It was the back end of summer and really windy, I think it was one of the thunderstorms that was meant to be coming. I thought the cows had been out all summer and they could come in for the winter, but they didn't want to come in.
"It went one way, but I still had a hold of it. Obviously, I scared it and still had hold of it, but it jumped over my face and scarred all of my face."
Darcie explains she wasn't initially scared and instead adopted a resilient attitude which she developed from a young age. Despite her indifference, she had to have plastic surgery, but said the hospital "did a great job" and the scars are barely visible now.
Picking herself back up despite the dramatic injuries, Darcie returned to her job of milking cows a week after the accident. "A few months later, I broke my finger whilst at the farm," Darcie added.
"I just thought, what are you doing with your life? You're just hurting yourself for no reason and you're overtired."
Feeling fed-up, Darcie found herself watching a beautician at work and queried with them about skin grafts for her lip after the first accident left a "white scar" near her lip. Interested in how it works, Darcie was told she could enrol in a course to learn more about skin grafts and from there, an idea was born.
"My scar wasn't healed, it had only been two or three months after the accident," Darcie explained. "I did it more to prepare myself, I thought if they've done it wrong then I can have this as the answer.
"I was looking for options in case it looked bad". Even though Darcie was lucky enough to have her scarring heal fully, she understands the permanence of scarring and how this can knock confidence and change people's lives for the worse.
Still holding on to her love of farming, Darcie has thought to the future and decided to take the skin grafting business more seriously and is now fully qualified in medical needling, scar camouflage and areola tattoos. Operating from her business As Before in Blackpool, Darcie is looking towards the future of her company which could develop into a life-long career.
But most importantly, she's helping people along the way. Using a tattoo gun with no skin, Darcie is able to reduce the texture of the scar until the process of scar camouflage which involves semi-permanent ink matching the patient's skin colour.
Darcie then tattoos a small amount of the pigment onto the skin, before waiting two weeks to see the final colour. A lot of her clients are breast cancer patients, who may require areola tattooing after a mastectomy.
"I also conduct areola tattooing, which is the process of making the areola look more round, camouflaging the scar tissue to the same colour of the areola or even creating a full new 3D perspective areola," Darcie explained. "The 3D perspective areola I am doing it for Free for Breast cancer patients and burn victims which don’t have their own.
"If the client wishes to give me a donation it will go to a Brest cancer charity or burns charity of their choice. This free service can change peoples life and confidence."
Darcie added: "It's beautiful, but it's sad at the same time. You are making such a difference to someone's life, even if no one else can see it, if you see it everyday it's a big thing to you."
