Be Down For The Adventure! (November 40-by-40 Update)

You may know me as April Capil, but in the First Descents family, my name is "Lemon Drop." I got my nickname because I wrote a book called "Recipe For Lemonade" - about how to rebuild your optimism post-disaster. If you *really* know me, you know I know a thing or two about survival.

For me, cancer came at the most inopportune time – after I had moved 3,000 miles from home to start a cacao farm on an island in the middle of the Pacific. After the bailout contracted my local economy and plummeted the value of my newly-planted dream property on said island. After my online business closed its doors, and before I realized I had crap health insurance that would not cover $250,000 of my medical bills. Yes, cancer was… inopportune, to say the least. Life gave me the ultimate lemon – a body that was not what I signed up for. A battle I hadn’t signed up for. Disappointment after disappointment – unrelenting unmet expectations, for weeks and weeks, until I looked around at all the lemons I had been dealt and realized that if I didn’t start making lemonade, life was going to get even more bitter. So I sought out other people who knew what it was like to have a chest port, who knew what it was like to lose your hair, chunk by agonizing chunk. I met women who were much, much stronger than me – and ones who were weaker, angrier, and more self-pitying. I woke up one day, dazed, and realized I had survived. I asked myself how - HOW, in the face fo so much? The answer was, I made lemonade out of lemons. "Recipe For Lemonade" isn't a cancer memoir, but a collection of the strategies I used to keep my sanity during a tough time. I love my "FD" nickname because it reminds me every day I am a survivor of more than just cancer.

First Descents gave me back the courage and fortitude that cancer stripped away, so I've made a commitment to fundraise for them as a way of returning the favor. Your gift to Team FD will not only support me in my endeavors to make my athletic achievements count for more than just my own blood, sweat, and tears - it will help give someone else their strength and courage back after cancer, and enable First Descents to continue to do the great work they're doing helping survivors like me. This video is a summary of what I've been able to do this year with the support and encouragement of First Descents, and a preview of what they have inspired me to put on my plate for 2011 as a member of "Team FD" - the organization's athletic-event focused fundraising arm.

If you'd like to join me at any of my races in 2011, click on the Team FD link below and sign up. You can fundraise as little or as much as you want to - no amount is too small and every little bit helps!

Thank you, with all my heart.

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TO DONATE OR JOIN MY "TEAM FD" TEAM, CLICK HERE:http://teamfd.firstdescents.org/2010/fd/teamapril/aprilcapil