Author April Capil: I Survived Cancer and Here Is How I Did It

An Interview With Savio P. Clemente

You Need an Understanding of What You Want Your Life to Be. No matter where you are in your cancer journey — if you’ve just been diagnosed, or are on your third recurrence and facing hospice care, YOU get to decide what you want your life to be. YOU get to decide if you spend the rest of your life — be it 3 months or 30 years — regretting the past, having anxiety about the future, or embracing the present. Use this opportunity to put some thought into what you want to let go of, forgive, or repair. Ask yourself what you came here to do, and what’s truly worth prioritizing, if this is your “one wild and precious life,” as poet Mary Oliver put it. Decide what you want your life to be, and focus on that.

Cancer is a horrible and terrifying disease. Yet millions of people have beaten the odds and beat cancer. Authority Magazine started a new series called “I Survived Cancer and Here Is How I Did It”. In this interview series, we are talking to cancer survivors to share their stories, in order to offer hope and provide strength to people who are being impacted by cancer today. As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Author and Health Coach April Capil, a 13-year breast cancer survivor.

April Capil is an Author and Health Coach specializing in weight loss and cancer recovery. With a decade of experience writing about crisis management and post-traumatic growth, April has carved out the kind of “Bucket List Life” many people only dream about, re-inventing herself and inspiring young adult cancer survivors to “Get Busy Living.” After COVID-related budget cuts eliminated her day job in tech, she decided to start a new chapter as a Health Coach, working to help others achieve their wellness goals.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! We really appreciate the courage it takes to publicly share your story. Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?

I grew up in Northern California in a mixed-race family; my father was Filipino and my mother was Caucasian. I lost both my parents by 21, so for most of my life, it’s just been me and my younger sister Rachel, following our dreams and working hard to make them come true. Just having someone in my family who supports me but also checks my expectations has been the greatest blessing. I joke that when I was diagnosed with cancer, Rachel and I both had the same question: “Who’s going to take care of me now?!” Truthfully, we’ve been through a lot of trials and tribulations together, but I think we’ve thrived because of the work ethic we were raised with and the resilience we’ve cultivated. I feel very fortunate to have survived a cancer diagnosis, and I never forget what a gift it is to still be here. It’s what motivates me not just to live the fullest life I can, but to always put my health first, for myself and for my family.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

The quote that got me through cancer was from Emily Dickinson: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.” So much of surviving cancer is holding onto a hope that things can get better, especially during those times when you have no evidence that it will.

I was told early on that 51% of your recovery is determined by your attitude, so I chose to focus on what I could control — my responses and reactions to the challenges I faced. Whenever I was struggling, I would think of Dickinson’s words, and try to imagine myself on the other side of whatever obstacle I came across.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about surviving cancer. Do you feel comfortable sharing with us the story surrounding how you found out that you had cancer?

A few months after I turned 30, I felt a small lump in my right breast, sort of like a blueberry under my skin. I had it checked out, even got a mammogram, and was told that it wasn’t cancer, but that I should continue to monitor it. Four years went by, and every year, I dutifully had the lump checked out. Every year, my doctors told me the same things: “Women get lumps all the time,” “You’re too young to have cancer,” “You have no family history,” “You don’t need to worry about it.” The mammograms and sonograms supported this, so I never thought to question anything.

The summer after I turned 34, however, the lump changed. During a self-exam, I noticed that it suddenly felt like a wad of chewing gum instead of a blueberry — and I thought I felt another lump, high up in my armpit, that hadn’t been there before.

What was the scariest part of that event? What did you think was the worst thing that could happen to you?

The scariest part of my journey was when I met with a new doctor about the lump in my armpit. I wasn’t concerned, but she recommended we schedule a lumpectomy as soon as possible. I told her about all the other doctors who had dismissed my cancer worries, and asked her why we wouldn’t do a (less invasive) sentinel node biopsy first, just to be sure. She paused, then pointed to a diagram on her wall, showing the four stages of breast cancer. Stage Three depicted the sentinel node, sitting high in a woman’s armpit, completely engulfed in a tumor. I realized in that moment that the lump in my armpit probably meant that I not only had cancer, but that it had already spread to my sentinel node. I didn’t need a biopsy. I needed surgery, and I needed it right away, because my doctor was hoping I was Stage Three and not Stage Four.

How did you react in the short term?

When I woke up from my lumpectomy, the first words I heard were, “It was cancer, but we got it all out.” The bad news was, because the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, there was no way I was avoiding chemo and radiation. Adding to this was the reality that I was living on a small island with limited treatment resources. It was November 2008 — I had just started a business, but the economy was tanking, and my home’s value was dropping more every day. Cancer was about to make everything else I was already struggling with that much harder.

After the dust settled, what coping mechanisms did you use? What did you do to cope physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?

There were so many things to cope with. First, there were the physical challenges — losing my hair and my energy, having to drive half an hour each way into town for treatment three times a week. Not having the stamina to clean my house or weed my garden or do any of the things I moved to Kaua’i to do in the first place. Then there were the mental challenges — worrying about my finances, worrying about my health insurance, worrying that I would die and leave my sister alone to pick up the pieces of my quickly shattering life. I looked around at all the things I had spent so much time and money to ship across an ocean, and imagined it all having to go to some local thrift store or worse, the dump. I cried over all the dreams I had for my future, that were evaporating on a daily basis. It was beyond overwhelming.

Bloated from steroids with thinning eyebrows and absent eyelashes, I couldn’t even recognize the person I saw when I looked in the mirror. Who was this puffy, hairless, tired woman staring back at me, and what did she have to look forward to after chemo? Unemployment? Foreclosure? Bankruptcy? I sank into a depression, questioning why I even wanted to keep fighting. When I realized I would have to shut down my business and sell my dream house for far less than I’d paid for it, I decided to move back home, hoping that being closer to family would give me a reason to keep waking up in the morning.

Is there a particular person you are grateful towards who helped you learn to cope and heal? Can you share a story about that?

When I arrived in California, I was lucky enough to find a doctor who enrolled me in a clinical trial. In our first meeting, she said something I’ll never forget: “With triple negative cases like yours, there’s nothing you can take to keep your cancer from coming back.” Until that moment, it had never even occurred to me that my cancer could come back — that I might have to go through all of this again. I sat in her office, in shock as she told me that, while triple negative breast cancer is the most aggressive and the most likely to recur, it’s also the most responsive to chemotherapy, which is why the treatment protocol is so tough. I was getting two shots a week of bone-building drugs that made my joints ache and IV bags of Taxol that left me nauseous for days, but every time I thought about giving up, I remembered Dr. Kuan’s words, and told myself I was tougher than my cancer. To this day, I credit her with giving me an edge in the fight for my life.

My sister was also my greatest source of emotional support. A few weeks after I came home, she threw me a surprise party with dozens of my friends — some of which she’d never even met — and it reminded me that I mattered and I was loved at a time when I really needed it, but was too scared to say so. Over the year it took me to complete my treatment, Rachel was always there, in my corner, even when it was hard to be. We fought time and again, but looking back, I realize we were fighting for each other, for our relationship and our future. It took me years to recover completely from cancer, and I couldn’t have done it without my sister. She helped save my life just as much as my oncologist did.

In my own cancer struggle, I sometimes used the idea of embodiment to help me cope. Let’s take a minute to look at cancer from an embodiment perspective. If your cancer had a message for you, what do you think it would want or say?

I often say that cancer is like a civil war. After all, it’s your own body that’s trying to kill you. I’ve thought often about that renegade cell, and still wonder about what could have fueled its growth. Was it too much ice cream with hormones in it when I was a kid? The high stress of my early 30s? My insane sweet tooth? What was it, that divided my body into a camp that was business as usual on one side, and a bunch of rebels on the other, willing to take down the whole ship just so they could be heard? I do think cancer had a message for me. The message was, “PAY ATTENTION. THIS IS YOUR LIFE AND TOMORROW IS NOT GUARANTEED.”

What did you learn about yourself from this very difficult experience? How has cancer shaped your worldview? What has it taught you that you might never have considered before? Can you please explain with a story or example?

They say that you really have two lives, and the second one begins the moment you realize you have only one. Cancer divided my life into “before” and “after,” and even though it took me years to be grateful for it, today I am at peace with the experience, and grateful for the lessons it gave me. Cancer taught me how — to paraphrase Oscar Wilde — to make life my art, set myself to music, and make my days my sonnets. I never would have appreciated this little window we get to be on Earth without it.

How have you used your experience to bring goodness to the world?

I have always been a writer, and I knew when I started my cancer journey that eventually, I would write a book about the experience. I ended up writing three — about how to keep it together when everything is falling apart (Recipe For Lemonade), how to rebuild after the dust settles (Life After Lemonade) and how to hope again when you’ve lost everything (New Tricks). My books aren’t even cancer memoirs, to be honest. They’re more like a collection of lessons on how to live when you’ve survived trauma — how to cope, how to recover, and how to craft a second happiness. In Joseph Campbell’s work, he talks about the Hero’s Journey — that very human quest that motivates us to explore a new world, allow ourselves to be transformed by it, and bring a gift back to the world we know because of it. If cancer gave me anything, it was the ability to turn lead into gold — to be an alchemist in my own life, and to teach others how to do the same. That is the goodness I brought back from my cancer experience.

What are a few of the biggest misconceptions and myths out there about fighting cancer that you would like to dispel?

Well, first of all, no one knows why they got cancer, and I think I can safely say other people’s suggestions about how they can cure it or prevent it from coming back in the future are generally not welcome. I know why people ask these questions — they’re looking for security in an uncertain world. Collecting evidence that they can’t get cancer themselves comforts people. Collecting evidence that they don’t have to be afraid of someone they know dying of cancer comforts people. But for those of us who actually have cancer, all this inquiry does is imply that it’s our fault we’ve got it. It’s not helpful, and kind of hurtful. Instead, when you meet someone who is fighting cancer, just tell them you care, and ask what you can do to be supportive and encouraging. I guarantee it’s not “Please, tell me how I probably got cancer, or what I can do to keep it from killing me.”

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experiences and knowledge, what advice would you give to others who have recently been diagnosed with cancer? What are your “5 Things You Need To Beat Cancer? Please share a story or example for each.

I tend to shy away from language that implies cancer is a fight you can win or an enemy you can beat, because I never want a mother to believe her 5 year old daughter who died from leukemia didn’t fight hard enough, or a son who lost his mother to breast cancer to think she was bested by a superior opponent. Cancer is a fight, to be sure, but I believe it’s something you survive, as opposed to something you win or lose.

That being said, here are my 5 Things You Need to Survive Cancer (viewable on my YouTube Channel here: https://youtu.be/O-ZFiJo5P8w ):

1. You Need an Understanding of What You Want Your Life to Be. No matter where you are in your cancer journey — if you’ve just been diagnosed, or are on your third recurrence and facing hospice care, YOU get to decide what you want your life to be. YOU get to decide if you spend the rest of your life — be it 3 months or 30 years — regretting the past, having anxiety about the future, or embracing the present. Use this opportunity to put some thought into what you want to let go of, forgive, or repair. Ask yourself what you came here to do, and what’s truly worth prioritizing, if this is your “one wild and precious life,” as poet Mary Oliver put it. Decide what you want your life to be, and focus on that.
2. You Need an Inventory of Your Assets and Liabilities. Cancer is not easy, and to take it on without an awareness of what will help you and what will hurt you puts you at a distinct disadvantage. Use this as an opportunity to take stock — which friends and family members will be there for you, and which ones won’t? What bad habits might it be time to get rid of? What new hobbies and interests might be helpful in giving you something to look forward to, or even just pass the time while you’re clocking all those chemo sessions? Make room for the things in your life that will support you and move you forward, and let go of the things that have been holding you back and undermining your happiness.
3. You Need a Road Map (just for the next 1–5 Years). All you know when you’re first diagnosed is what you’re dealing with, what the treatment is likely to be for it, and how much of your time it’s going to take up. The good news is, most docs will have an idea of how the next 1–3 years are likely to go, and they will probably reassess every 3–6 months to give you a sense of what to expect. The bad news is, cancer isn’t always predictable or controllable, despite you and your oncologist’s best efforts. You might respond especially well to something and need less of it than your doctor thought. It might take longer to see results, and you’ll be forced to cancel vacations or miss graduations. Your journey isn’t always going to meet your expectations, and you’ll need to learn to be okay with that. Regardless of what is waiting for you out there in your future, it will help to have an initial road map to prepare yourself for the journey ahead. Human beings are wired to fear the unknown, and having a map — even one that will inevitably change and evolve — reduces uncertainty. When you give your brain a framework to start from, everything is a lot less scary. So work with your doctor and care team to develop a plan for your treatment, and, if it’s available where you are, a plan for your survivorship after treatment.
4. You Need a Community. No man is an island, and you definitely don’t want to be one if you’re going through cancer. These days, there are literally hundreds of support groups out there, where you can find a community of patients and survivors to connect with. Cervivor, Imerman’s Angels, First Descents, the American Cancer Society and Cancer Support Community are all great resources I’ve worked with or benefitted from during my own cancer journey. Reach out to your local ACS or seek out local Facebook Groups in your area to connect with other patients and survivors who are going through (or have been through) what you’re facing. It will help you feel less alone, put you in touch with resources you may not know about, and give you a shoulder to lean on during those times when family and friends might not be enough or — usually — just might not understand what you’re going through. It’s totally normal for someone who loves you and supports you to not get what it feels like to have cancer. That’s why you need a community who’s been where you’ve been. If your loved ones need their own support, there are even caregiver communities out there who can help them cope and get what they need to stay healthy.
5. You Need to Practice Being Calm. This sounds pretty basic, I know, especially if you’re already panicking. The fact is, you’re going to face a lot of stress in the months ahead — your brain is going to spin from it. Stress in the form of managing appointments, worrying about the future, finding a baseball cap to cover your thinning hair, assuring friends and family that you’re “Fine!” and Googling things like “loss of libido Adriamycin.” So right now, you need to start practicing being calm. Download a mindfulness app. Try a guided meditation on YouTube. Get in the habit of going for walks — preferable outside, in nature. Take a yoga class. Find an herbal tea you like. Keeping Calm is going to help you Carry On, so start practicing now, long before you’re really going to need it. This way, when your apple cart gets turned upside down in three months, you’ll already be in the habit of dialing everything back a notch and embracing your inner Buddha. Cultivate a place inside yourself where you can be at peace, and practice going there when you need to.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?

I would ask the pediatricians of the world to start screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences. If you’re thinking, “What does this have to do with cancer?!” understand that it has everything to do with not just cancer, but heart disease, stroke, asthma, diabetes, and so many other life-threatening diseases that jeopardize the lives of the people we love. Child abuse is the single greatest threat to our health, and it’s time we started talking about it. The connection between early trauma and life-threatening diseases in adulthood can no longer be ignored. If we actually started acknowledging the positive impact we can have on our long-term health by supporting children and parents when they need it most, we could exponentially reduce the burden placed on our already spread-thin healthcare systems later in life.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

20 years after the landmark ACE study was completed, we are just starting to understand the connection between childhood trauma and diseases like cancer, and what we can do to repair and recover from the damage it does. If I could meet anyone and just say “Thank you!” and “How can I be of service?” it would be California’s Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris! The Deepest Well is a book that changed my life, because it helped me see my clients as not just cancer survivors, but childhood trauma survivors, often in need of healing deep wounds they weren’t even aware of. I could never thank Dr. Harris enough for her research and commitment to helping children recover from early trauma to ensure they grow into healthy adults.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can learn more about me and my work at www.aprilcapil.com. All of my books are available online at your favorite digital retailer, and you can check out my YouTube Channel for more inspiring videos to help you on your cancer journey: www.youtube.com/c/aprilcapil.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!