<p>Setting off to Spain from Skipton on 1st April, 9am Town Hall, come along and wave us off!</p> <p>Training is going well so far, just got back from 2 weeks practice in sunny but cold Spain and it has built my confidence on the road no end! I now feel more aggressive while riding. Still suffering from painful stomach cramps at times which is a bit annoying, but no pain no gain!</p> <p>Hello there, here is 21 years crammed in to a few paragraphs!</p> <p>My name is Deborah Smith at the age of 14 I was taken into hospital with apparent anaemia, I received many tests and a 9 pint blood transfusion and then suffered a huge seizure that put me in intensive care and a coma for 2 days.</p> <p>I was transfered to St James' Hospital in Leeds where further tests were carried out only to discover that my kidneys were failing, I was given different experimental treatments to try and save them, these were unsucessful and yet again suffered a huge seizure. I awoke from another coma 3 days later on my 15th Birthday only to find myself attached to a dialysis machine, dialysis carried on for a further year at St James', 3 days a week, 3 hours each session.</p> <p>The call came late one afternoon, while my Mum was making Tea, that a possible donor kidney had been found. I was taken to the transplant ward where, what seemed like a litre, of blood was taken for compatability testing with the donor kidney. The matching was sucessful and the day after I had the transplant, everything went better than expected and I was home nine days later!</p> <p>It will be my 20th anniversary on 29th April 2012, and to celebrate my husband, Phil, and I are cycling to the Costa Blanca in Spain, approx 1400 miles, please be aware that i'm not a cycling enthusiast and havn't really done much cycling ever, which makes this an even greater challenge for myself and a bigger reason for your support.</p> <p>All money raised will go directly to the NKF, we are meeting acommodation and travelling costs ourselves.</p> <p>Thanks to all at Wharfedale Farmers Mart for their kind donations and all the help from Alison who has collected &pound;405.50 so far!</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>