00:00:08 Eoin Dore
Hello and welcome to Anesthesia On Air, your podcast hosted by the Royal College of Anaesthetists.
00:00:14 Eoin Dore
My name is Eoin Dore.
00:00:15 Eoin Dore
I'm A trainee working in Thames Valley and today I have the privilege of hosting a keynote speaker from the Wind Symposium, Andy Wharton.
00:00:27 Eoin Dore
Andy's an inspiration.
00:00:28 Eoin Dore
He's a retired anaesthetist who has done some incredible things whilst dealing with a diagnosis of motor neurone disease.
00:00:35 Eoin Dore
And we're joined today by him and his wife to talk through his journey.
00:00:40 Eoin Dore
It's a podcast that I found very moving to record and a privilege to hear Andy and his wife Susie.
00:00:47 Eoin Dore
And I hope you enjoy our conversation today.
00:00:52 Eoin Dore
It is fantastic to welcome Andy and Susan Vaughton to the podcast studio today, just after Andy's keynote speech at the Winter Symposium.
00:01:01 Eoin Dore
Andy Vaughton is an inspiration.
00:01:03 Eoin Dore
He's a retired asset consultant who, after being diagnosed with MND in 2021, has led Andy's army through multiple fundraising efforts to raise over 200,000 pounds for MND research, including recently completing the Rob Burrow Marathon in under 6 hours.
00:01:20 Eoin Dore
which is amazing.
00:01:21 Eoin Dore
Welcome, Andy.
00:01:23 Andy Vaughton
Thanks, Eoin.
00:01:23 Andy Vaughton
Yeah, it's nice to be here.
00:01:25 Andy Vaughton
Thank you.
00:01:26 Eoin Dore
And Susie, not only are you a GP, you're also a best-selling Amazon author.
00:01:32 Susie Vaughton
Yes, thank you.
00:01:34 Susie Vaughton
Yeah, I was a GP partner and then since last year I've been full-time with the author career.
00:01:42 Susie Vaughton
Lucky that it sort of allows me to be at home.
00:01:45 Susie Vaughton
and supporting Andy and spending more time together with our boys as well.
00:01:48 Susie Vaughton
So yeah, it's been a very positive move for me.
00:01:50 Eoin Dore
Andy, you graduated from Guys and Tommies in London, a rival university to mine, and you've worked in Wales and Australia before settling in Wessex and then in Bournemouth.
00:02:00 Eoin Dore
Would you mind just telling us about your background and your journey with aesthetics?
00:02:04 Andy Vaughton
Yeah, we qualified in 2003, did a house jobs on the South East Coast and then after that went to Australia for a year.
00:02:12 Andy Vaughton
and did a variety of different roles over there, one of which was A&E.
00:02:17 Andy Vaughton
I took a long time to kind of work out what I wanted to do.
00:02:20 Andy Vaughton
So we came back from Australia, I went into another A&E job, still trying to decide on a future career.
00:02:29 Andy Vaughton
I was pretty unsure what specialty I wanted to go into.
00:02:35 Andy Vaughton
There were aspects of A&E that I really enjoyed, so the resuscitation side of things.
00:02:40 Andy Vaughton
I liked the look of the
00:02:42 Andy Vaughton
anaesthetist when he came in and saved the day in resus.
00:02:45 Andy Vaughton
I started thinking about a career in anaesthetics at that stage, but I was also considering GP.
00:02:51 Andy Vaughton
I did an ob and gynae job after that, but I was playing a bit of rugby in Wales and I was playing rugby with a couple of anaesthetic consultants and they encouraged me to apply for a job that came up at their hospital in Bridgend.
00:03:04 Andy Vaughton
I'd had a couple of other mates who'd started an anaesthetic job and they
00:03:10 Andy Vaughton
absolutely loved it.
00:03:11 Andy Vaughton
And then I guess just fortuitously got the job and never looked back after that.
00:03:17 Andy Vaughton
It was a career absolutely loved.
00:03:19 Andy Vaughton
It was very hands-on, which suited me.
00:03:21 Andy Vaughton
I loved the clinical side of it.
00:03:23 Andy Vaughton
So after Bridgend and moved up to Bangor, we got hit by MMC and Suzy, despite us just getting engaged and having a house in Cardiff, moved down to Poole through all that was going on at the time.
00:03:36 Andy Vaughton
Then eventually I managed to transfer down to Wessex, finished my training there and then luckily got a job in Bournemouth where I ended up working with a lot of really close mates of mine from uni.
00:03:46 Andy Vaughton
Yeah it was great, I loved it.
00:03:47 Andy Vaughton
The camaraderie, I loved working in theatres and the team environment.
00:03:52 Andy Vaughton
And like I said, just the clinical aspects of the job was, it was my dream really in medicine.
00:03:59 Eoin Dore
It's summarised by the fact that on your profile and the Bournemouth Hospital's website, it just says job satisfaction.
00:04:05 Eoin Dore
That's the number one thing you enjoy being an anaesthetist about.
00:04:09 Eoin Dore
Do you think your background in rugby and your keeping up your sport has helped your journey through medicine?
00:04:16 Andy Vaughton
Oh, definitely.
00:04:16 Andy Vaughton
Like you know, rugby is a great team sport.
00:04:20 Andy Vaughton
You have to work together to try and win a game.
00:04:23 Andy Vaughton
And I think that translates into medicine.
00:04:25 Andy Vaughton
There's lots of those softer skills, the communication skills, the teamwork.
00:04:31 Andy Vaughton
and all those, all the softer skills that you're not really trained in, or certainly we weren't particularly when we were going through medical school, that I think massively helped me in my career, and particularly in aesthetics, where it's a real team environment.
00:04:43 Eoin Dore
Yeah, and communication is so important amongst it as well.
00:04:47 Eoin Dore
Moving on to your discussion about your first symptoms.
00:04:51 Eoin Dore
So in 2016 from that skiing accident, you first started noticing various different symptoms and then you sought medical expertise after you lost a arm wrestling match.
00:05:05 Andy Vaughton
Yeah, that's right.
00:05:06 Eoin Dore
How did you first notice the symptoms of MND?
00:05:08 Andy Vaughton
My diagnosis is complicated.
00:05:12 Andy Vaughton
I have a long history which, rather than neurologists,
00:05:16 Andy Vaughton
initially were like, we don't think this is relevant, but I have a long history of fasciculations and a long history of unusual cramps.
00:05:23 Andy Vaughton
Then I had, like you say, that skiing accident and a rugby incident, which I think probably muddied the waters a little bit because I had a prolonged recovery after that.
00:05:34 Andy Vaughton
And during that time, I think, I started to fasciculate more, I started to cramp more.
00:05:39 Andy Vaughton
But because I'd had it for so long, I just ignored it.
00:05:43 Andy Vaughton
And then it was
00:05:44 Andy Vaughton
2019 where I started to realise things weren't right.
00:05:48 Andy Vaughton
And I did at times, I did Google MND symptoms.
00:05:53 Andy Vaughton
I knew I had some red flags, but each time I would kind of bury it and think, well, there is other things to explain what's going on.
00:06:01 Andy Vaughton
I had ulnar nerve compression symptoms.
00:06:03 Andy Vaughton
And I thought it was down to that.
00:06:05 Andy Vaughton
But yeah, like you say, it was one of the big light bulb moments for me was when I was at home wrestling.
00:06:11 Andy Vaughton
And
00:06:13 Andy Vaughton
I like telling stories, it's quite amusing.
00:06:16 Andy Vaughton
And I like ribbing my mates, who I lost to about it, because in the press I say that I shouldn't have lost to them, which they get very upset about.
00:06:25 Andy Vaughton
But it was, like I said in the talk, it's a really weird feeling where your brain's telling you to do one thing and your arm isn't responding as it should do.
00:06:34 Andy Vaughton
And it was in...
00:06:37 Andy Vaughton
in an arm wrestle where you really go to try and push someone else's arm down, you need that power to come on.
00:06:42 Andy Vaughton
I just didn't have that power any longer in my arm.
00:06:45 Andy Vaughton
And yeah, it was a real kind of wake up for me that I actually needed to do something, I needed to get it checked out.
00:06:51 Eoin Dore
And then you went to go and speak to neurologists and you got diagnosed in 2021 at the height of the pandemic.
00:07:03 Eoin Dore
What was it like navigating the diagnosis, especially being a doctor by background when you're dealing with it?
00:07:10 Andy Vaughton
So there's a couple of aspects here.
00:07:12 Andy Vaughton
It was at the height of the pandemic.
00:07:15 Andy Vaughton
That made it difficult actually.
00:07:16 Andy Vaughton
I had to go to most of the appointments by myself and each one was more brutal than the previous one.
00:07:24 Andy Vaughton
Some of them I didn't think I was going to get the news that I actually got in the end that I had MND.
00:07:30 Andy Vaughton
I thought that I needed some more investigations and things like that.
00:07:33 Andy Vaughton
So I had a sense of foreboding for most of the appointments, but I wasn't always expecting the news that I got.
00:07:39 Andy Vaughton
And then trying to navigate that by myself was very, very difficult and particularly brutal.
00:07:46 Andy Vaughton
Navigating the diagnosis as a medic
00:07:50 Andy Vaughton
It's hard.
00:07:50 Andy Vaughton
I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.
00:07:53 Andy Vaughton
It's difficult to say, but I knew exactly what I was going to be facing.
00:07:57 Andy Vaughton
I'd actually had a colleague who'd been diagnosed with it a few years before, and I'd seen her go through the diagnosis and progress very quickly.
00:08:07 Andy Vaughton
And yeah, just you immediately go to the kind of darkest place and focus on the bleakest outcome from it.
00:08:16 Andy Vaughton
Because with MND, there's no
00:08:19 Andy Vaughton
There's nothing you can do.
00:08:20 Andy Vaughton
There's no meaningful treatments.
00:08:22 Andy Vaughton
There's no cure.
00:08:23 Andy Vaughton
It's very difficult to see a positive outcome.
00:08:25 Andy Vaughton
And I really, really struggled early on with that.
00:08:28 Eoin Dore
And in terms of that, also being a doctor was sort of, as you've mentioned previously, with the symptoms, we sort of self-push things over to the side as well, which makes it so difficult to deal with it.
00:08:40 Eoin Dore
But thank you for sharing that with us, Andy.
00:08:44 Eoin Dore
Almost a fairly similar question, Susie, being a doctor yourself by background and supporting a partner through the MND diagnosis, do you think that makes it more difficult or adds in different elements to it?
00:08:58 Susie Vaughton
I mean, being diagnosed with MND is difficult, whatever.
00:09:01 Susie Vaughton
But yeah, I think because you have the background of going through medical school, some conditions are more scary than others.
00:09:10 Susie Vaughton
MND probably is one of the most scary.
00:09:13 Susie Vaughton
You think, gosh, really wouldn't want to be diagnosed with that.
00:09:16 Susie Vaughton
And then I'm very good at denial.
00:09:19 Susie Vaughton
So Andy would tell me I'm articulating or this.
00:09:22 Susie Vaughton
And he, I think, knew he had MND a long time before he was diagnosed.
00:09:27 Susie Vaughton
And he did tell me a few times that he was concerned and I would just shrug it off really, wouldn't I?
00:09:35 Susie Vaughton
I was like, no, don't be ridiculous.
00:09:37 Susie Vaughton
So I found it very difficult to accept initially that
00:09:42 Susie Vaughton
that was the diagnosis and that was the path we're going down.
00:09:45 Susie Vaughton
And I think, you do realise the hopelessness of things as a medic quicker, but obviously if you're a non-medic and you're diagnosed, then you'll start doing the research fairly quickly and it will, but I think it hits you probably more suddenly as a medic.
00:10:02 Eoin Dore
Yeah, as opposed to the gradual, as you said, from various different online researchers that you can do.
00:10:08 Eoin Dore
Coming back to your profession that we both know and love, you've got a profession that's so physically demanding.
00:10:15 Eoin Dore
How was it dealing with MND whilst being an anaesthetist?
00:10:19 Andy Vaughton
I guess at the time I didn't realise it was MND, but I would question it from time to time.
00:10:28 Andy Vaughton
I started to struggle physically with certain procedures.
00:10:34 Andy Vaughton
My cramps got worse and I became
00:10:37 Andy Vaughton
pretty adept at putting spinals in with a cramped hand.
00:10:42 Andy Vaughton
I had a couple of incidents where I'd had to help out with an epidural and in one particular incident went to put the Tui needle down onto the table next to me, my hand cramped round it.
00:10:55 Andy Vaughton
I was holding onto the catheter with the other hand and I had to, luckily I had a trainee with me who was unable to cramp my hand and take the needle out.
00:11:04 Andy Vaughton
So I'd had a few incidents like that which
00:11:07 Andy Vaughton
I started realising things weren't quite right.
00:11:10 Andy Vaughton
And then the other thing I noticed was if I'd had to hold on to a difficult airway, I was still really strong at this time, so I could, I could do lots of chin ups.
00:11:18 Andy Vaughton
So my grip strength was still really, really good.
00:11:21 Andy Vaughton
But I would notice after holding on to a difficult airway for a while and then going to do a procedure like an arterial line afterwards, I had a bit of a tremor, intention tremor, and that would be way, way worse after doing it.
00:11:35 Andy Vaughton
And after a while, I thought it was my on the nerve.
00:11:37 Andy Vaughton
I was hoping things would get better.
00:11:40 Andy Vaughton
But it does start to play on your mind and never suffered with anxiety or stress.
00:11:46 Andy Vaughton
Not that I acknowledged it as stress at work before, but it did start to play on my mind.
00:11:51 Andy Vaughton
You start to worry a little bit because you know things aren't quite right and you know things are a bit trickier.
00:11:57 Andy Vaughton
But I didn't have a label.
00:12:00 Andy Vaughton
I didn't really...
00:12:01 Andy Vaughton
I couldn't put my finger on what was, things weren't quite right, didn't know what it was.
00:12:05 Andy Vaughton
And with that, I'd started to get more, I can see this in hindsight, stressed.
00:12:11 Andy Vaughton
I stopped being able to cope with things so well.
00:12:14 Andy Vaughton
So I wasn't, I mean, I procrastinate at the best of times.
00:12:18 Andy Vaughton
But I noticed that I just wasn't dealing with emails as they were coming in.
00:12:23 Andy Vaughton
I did a lot of teaching and
00:12:26 Andy Vaughton
I was constantly being asked to put sessions on and I stopped being able to deal with that so well.
00:12:32 Andy Vaughton
And I think it was just, I was becoming overloaded with the health anxiety that was kind of hanging around in the background.
00:12:39 Andy Vaughton
And then as time went on and MND started to be floated around a little bit more, either in my mind or as professionals started to pick up on the fact that there was a problem, all that got worse to the point where I just basically stopped answering emails.
00:12:56 Andy Vaughton
And I would think I was at the point of maybe having a breakdown, as in I just couldn't deal with the stuff any longer.
00:13:02 Andy Vaughton
But that coincided with my diagnosis.
00:13:05 Andy Vaughton
It was a strange feeling because as devastating as the diagnosis was, there was a tiny bit of relief in there that actually there was a reason for me to be feeling all these feelings that I wasn't used to, so the anxiety and the stress.
00:13:19 Andy Vaughton
And it had been okay to feel like that because there was a real, real problem.
00:13:24 Andy Vaughton
And I knew with that diagnosis, all those things would go away.
00:13:28 Andy Vaughton
And it made me realise that, as medics, we carry around a lot of baggage that you don't appreciate a stress all the time until, you know, it's, I guess it's a straw that breaks the camel's back.
00:13:41 Andy Vaughton
You're just adding in that health anxiety.
00:13:44 Andy Vaughton
Suddenly it was too much for me.
00:13:46 Andy Vaughton
And I'd never really appreciated that before.
00:13:48 Andy Vaughton
I've always been pretty laid back and I, you know, I didn't think I got stressed.
00:13:52 Andy Vaughton
But
00:13:53 Andy Vaughton
actually you are, and you just don't realise it all the time.
00:13:55 Eoin Dore
That sounds like an incredibly difficult time, Andy, and I think you were mentioning in your talk about getting such conflicting advice about whether or not to stay in or actually think about stepping away.
00:14:08 Eoin Dore
I can't imagine how hard that decision would have been for you, but how did you find that transition of stepping away from clinical medicine?
00:14:16 Andy Vaughton
It was gradual.
00:14:17 Andy Vaughton
So I stepped away initially just because mentally I wasn't in the right place and
00:14:23 Andy Vaughton
It was coming up to summer and in my mind I needed just three months away to get my head around it, process what was going on.
00:14:30 Andy Vaughton
I didn't know what timeline was like, I didn't know how long I had.
00:14:33 Andy Vaughton
You're being told all the time by professionals who were saying it's terminal.
00:14:38 Andy Vaughton
I was told I'd probably lose use of my arm within a year and I just wanted to be with Susie, with my boys and spend some quality time with them.
00:14:49 Andy Vaughton
And then
00:14:52 Andy Vaughton
Like I said in the talk, my knee-jerk reaction was that I would go back to work because I just wanted things to stay the same.
00:14:58 Andy Vaughton
But after a while you realise that's probably not the right thing to do, I'm going to progress, at some stage I would have to step away from work.
00:15:06 Andy Vaughton
I think I wanted to just do it on my own terms.
00:15:08 Andy Vaughton
One of the ways I thought about it was like a footballer or a rugby player I guess, in your playing, I don't think I was ever in the Premiership.
00:15:18 Andy Vaughton
but I was probably bottom end of championship at best or something like that.
00:15:22 Andy Vaughton
But you don't want to start playing down the leagues and being, a lesser version of yourself.
00:15:28 Andy Vaughton
I didn't want to go to work and be supervised.
00:15:31 Andy Vaughton
I would have found that stressful, I think.
00:15:34 Andy Vaughton
And people watching you, watching the changes.
00:15:37 Andy Vaughton
And I realised for me, for many reasons, just for family time, for health reasons, so I could try and stay as fit as I possibly could.
00:15:45 Andy Vaughton
And that takes a huge amount of time, actually.
00:15:47 Andy Vaughton
that my time was better spent retiring on my own terms.
00:15:52 Andy Vaughton
But I was gutted.
00:15:53 Andy Vaughton
I loved, absolutely loved work.
00:15:55 Andy Vaughton
I loved the camaraderie.
00:15:56 Andy Vaughton
I loved the team environment.
00:15:58 Andy Vaughton
I loved the clinical side of it and I really missed that.
00:16:01 Andy Vaughton
And I wish I hadn't had to go out the way I did.
00:16:04 Andy Vaughton
I wish it could have been different, but you know, life changes and things like this happen and unfortunately you have to go with it and you have to do
00:16:15 Andy Vaughton
I had to do what's best for me and what's best for my family.
00:16:18 Andy Vaughton
So it was difficult, really, really difficult.
00:16:22 Andy Vaughton
But now looking back, I realise 100% it was the right thing to have done.
00:16:27 Susie Vaughton
I think when he took the three months, I was definitely of a mind he's not going back.
00:16:31 Susie Vaughton
There's the physical.
00:16:33 Susie Vaughton
He was not safe being an anaesthetist.
00:16:35 Susie Vaughton
It's such a physical job.
00:16:36 Susie Vaughton
You have to, you can't have a tremor, you can't have your hand cramping up when you're doing procedures.
00:16:41 Susie Vaughton
And that stress had been causing you so much anxiety.
00:16:45 Susie Vaughton
He's such a laid back man.
00:16:47 Susie Vaughton
And then he obviously, he was having difficulty doing the job that he's very, very good at.
00:16:52 Susie Vaughton
in a physical way, which is causing massive anxiety and also the background of the stress as well.
00:16:57 Susie Vaughton
It's difficult.
00:16:58 Susie Vaughton
You're not going to have someone tell you what to do and whether you're safe.
00:17:01 Susie Vaughton
You have to make that judgment yourself.
00:17:04 Susie Vaughton
And I was much more on the side of that you weren't going to go back to work.
00:17:10 Susie Vaughton
Like you said, oh, just three months and then I'll see how I am.
00:17:14 Susie Vaughton
And I was like, yeah, But I was much more, you won't be going back because
00:17:18 Susie Vaughton
He's not safe doing the role that he enjoys and he loves and also needs to focus on himself and his well-being and trying to reduce stress levels and things as well.
00:17:30 Susie Vaughton
But it is, it was, he had to make that judgement.
00:17:34 Susie Vaughton
Yeah, it's difficult, you can't have anyone else make it for you.
00:17:38 Eoin Dore
No, that's one of the wonders of anaesthetics, and especially someone who's so involved in anaesthetic training, is that you're constantly telling people to prepare for worst case scenario in your mind.
00:17:49 Eoin Dore
But then if you're concerned about how you'll step into that, I can't imagine how stressful that must be every day going into work, thinking about, well, what if, what if?
00:17:59 Eoin Dore
With that in mind, you have got a very unique experience in being a physician and also living with a life-limiting neurological disorder in MND.
00:18:12 Eoin Dore
Do you think there are lessons that we can learn from your experience in how we should approach patients with chronic disease?
00:18:22 Andy Vaughton
I think what I've learned with time living with this
00:18:27 Andy Vaughton
is that sometimes, and not everyone does this, but clinicians are, they try and project their views about your condition, because they know a lot about it onto you, but they haven't got the lived experience that you have, and it's very, very different.
00:18:45 Andy Vaughton
Not just talking about MND here, I've seen it in a few circumstances.
00:18:48 Andy Vaughton
One which I used to find was diabetics, that we would often assume the knowledge that
00:18:56 Andy Vaughton
that we have from what we've learned how to deal with the condition, but it's very individualised and every patient is very different.
00:19:05 Andy Vaughton
I learned to ask the patient what they would do in certain circumstances rather than trying to take over their treatment from them, assuming knowledge that actually we don't really have because everyone responds in a different way to it.
00:19:18 Andy Vaughton
I think it's similar with M&D.
00:19:20 Andy Vaughton
I definitely had conversations where
00:19:23 Andy Vaughton
I mentioned asking one of the neurologists about what they think I should do about work and they were immediately, well, I would carry on working until I could, had to be carried out at the hospital.
00:19:35 Andy Vaughton
And of course I'm asking his opinion, but projecting his opinion onto me doesn't help me, doesn't help me at all.
00:19:46 Andy Vaughton
You know, I'm trying to make a massive decision in my life and
00:19:50 Andy Vaughton
He's not feeling what I'm feeling because he's not having to live with it.
00:19:53 Andy Vaughton
And I think that is, I think it's an important distinction to make as a medic.
00:19:57 Andy Vaughton
Not to assume that your knowledge is better than a patient's lived experience with a condition.
00:20:02 Eoin Dore
Completely agree because there's so many as medics you just want to almost put people into boxes to simplify your thinking and to almost decrease the burden of being able to take on people's emotions and concerns and things like that.
00:20:17 Eoin Dore
But taking that step moment to make sure
00:20:20 Eoin Dore
they seem, feel, and heard.
00:20:22 Eoin Dore
Do you think that we can do a little bit better in the medical profession, Susie, at trying to garner that compassion and empathy?
00:20:29 Susie Vaughton
Yeah, I think so.
00:20:30 Susie Vaughton
I mean, they're saying that, you know, doctors often do a wonderful job with being very compassionate, very empathic.
00:20:38 Susie Vaughton
It is tricky with conditions that have so very little hope, and it's really a case of putting yourself in, I think, the patient's
00:20:48 Susie Vaughton
place, trying to feel where are they coming from with this?
00:20:51 Susie Vaughton
What's their experience?
00:20:52 Susie Vaughton
There's also an element of sometimes with conditions that you want to get across everything that's important about the condition and that can be your script almost, that I've got to get all of this across to the patient, I have to make sure they understand X, Y&Z.
00:21:07 Susie Vaughton
But also you can't take away all hope from people and often patients don't really want you to do that.
00:21:13 Susie Vaughton
So I think being treading
00:21:15 Susie Vaughton
a little carefully there as well.
00:21:17 Susie Vaughton
Just to keep in mind, patients don't always want to operate from a place of complete, sort of, to be completely, yes, informed, but not sort of completely hopeless.
00:21:29 Susie Vaughton
But a lot of doctors are absolutely wonderful and our neurologist has been wonderful.
00:21:33 Susie Vaughton
The specialist nurse is wonderful as well, isn't she?
00:21:36 Susie Vaughton
Anamika.
00:21:36 Susie Vaughton
So people are doing very well with it.
00:21:39 Susie Vaughton
But yeah, just putting yourself in the patient's place.
00:21:41 Eoin Dore
One of the highlights and fantastic bits in your talk was just how much you've pushed yourself over the past years to raise an astonishing amount of money for MND.
00:21:55 Eoin Dore
I mean, the list was incredible.
00:21:56 Eoin Dore
You've broke a Guinness World Record for the longest beach touch rugby game ever.
00:22:03 Eoin Dore
You've done a 12-day hike with your sister in Jordan, and you've recently completed the Rob Burrow Marathon in under 6 hours, which is an incredible achievement in itself, let alone when you're running with MND.
00:22:16 Eoin Dore
So just moving on to the Guinness World Record attempts, I mean, how was that?
00:22:21 Andy Vaughton
It was amazing.
00:22:21 Andy Vaughton
I love rugby.
00:22:23 Andy Vaughton
It's been a massive part of my life.
00:22:24 Andy Vaughton
So to get to play rugby for 34 hours with my mates on the beach was just an unbelievable experience.
00:22:31 Andy Vaughton
And then to do it, to fundraise so much money was awesome.
00:22:37 Andy Vaughton
It was huge logistical exercise.
00:22:40 Andy Vaughton
It took months and months and months to organise.
00:22:43 Andy Vaughton
When we first came up with the idea, just four of us met in a pub, to see whether it was feasible or not.
00:22:49 Andy Vaughton
I think in the back of our minds we thought we would go down with four jumpers as posts, get someone to stand on the touchline and film us with their phone and run around for like 20 odd hours or so.
00:23:01 Andy Vaughton
But it turned out that was no way sufficient.
00:23:05 Andy Vaughton
And Guinness require a lot of boxes to be ticked.
00:23:09 Andy Vaughton
They do.
00:23:10 Andy Vaughton
Yeah, a lot, a lot of boxes.
00:23:11 Andy Vaughton
So that came with like a huge number of requirements and a huge number of people to help out with that side of things.
00:23:17 Andy Vaughton
And then obviously logistically doing it for that long, you need a huge amount of food, physios, tents, marquees, floodlights, and to get all that onto a beach is tricky.
00:23:31 Andy Vaughton
So yeah, there's a huge number of people involved and a huge number of people put in a massive amount of work.
00:23:37 Susie Vaughton
It was a big community effort, wasn't it?
00:23:39 Susie Vaughton
Down in Pool.
00:23:40 Andy Vaughton
Yeah, it was amazing.
00:23:41 Andy Vaughton
It was just...
00:23:42 Andy Vaughton
It's really difficult to describe, but just a sense of community that ran through the whole thing and the crowds it attracted, obviously the fundraising.
00:23:52 Andy Vaughton
It was incredible.
00:23:53 Andy Vaughton
Really, really emotional couple of days and times you'll never forget.
00:23:58 Andy Vaughton
And I have to be careful with Susie here, but you know, it's definitely up there with wedding day.
00:24:04 Eoin Dore
Can't say anything about the birth of your children.
00:24:06 Eoin Dore
Yeah,
00:24:09 Eoin Dore
What I'd like to put into the link is if it's available on YouTube is you've put together a fantastic two, three minute video of the highlights of it.
00:24:19 Eoin Dore
Susie, did you manage to rest at all in your support role?
00:24:22 Eoin Dore
Because I saw in many of the photos you were there leading a lot of the different support elements to keep that game going.
00:24:28 Susie Vaughton
Not really, no.
00:24:31 Susie Vaughton
Andy's rugby team are called the Sandbaggers and they have named the wives the Handbaggers.
00:24:36 Susie Vaughton
We're not really on board with the name, but there you go.
00:24:41 Susie Vaughton
So the handbaggers were all great.
00:24:43 Susie Vaughton
They're great friends and they were brilliant support.
00:24:46 Susie Vaughton
They were coordinating all of the food and all sorts.
00:24:49 Susie Vaughton
It was a massive undertaking.
00:24:50 Susie Vaughton
So it was really fun, exhausting, but really fun.
00:24:53 Eoin Dore
I wanted to ask you about your inspiration from Doddie Weir.
00:24:59 Eoin Dore
You mentioned it in your talk and I know that you've done a lot of fundraising for the My Name Is Doddie Foundation, but you previously had a connection.
00:25:09 Eoin Dore
with him, meeting him when he was 22, and then he contacted you after the diagnosis.
00:25:15 Eoin Dore
What did that conversation mean to you?
00:25:17 Andy Vaughton
A huge amount.
00:25:21 Andy Vaughton
He reached out and he spoke to me about 40 minutes.
00:25:23 Andy Vaughton
It was a busy time for him.
00:25:25 Andy Vaughton
It was during the Lions Tour when he called me.
00:25:29 Andy Vaughton
And he was also clearly suffering a lot with M&D at the time.
00:25:35 Andy Vaughton
His voice was going.
00:25:38 Andy Vaughton
But to take the time to reach out, we had a chat about the Barbados story where we met up in a bar and he obviously didn't remember it, but he remembered the holiday, so we talked about that.
00:25:50 Andy Vaughton
And then we talked about both the journeys that we've been on and he gave me just some really useful insights into how he'd cope with his diagnosis, how important it was to stay positive, just keep putting 1 foot in front of the other and
00:26:08 Andy Vaughton
drink lots of Guinness.
00:26:10 Andy Vaughton
But he's a lovely bloke.
00:26:11 Andy Vaughton
He is, as you see him, he's unbelievably friendly, very down to earth and incredibly strong, courageous man to do what he did whilst, you know, he was living with a reasonably fast progression of the disease and to do all he's done was just absolutely inspirational.
00:26:33 Andy Vaughton
And he would always be a huge inspiration in my journey.
00:26:38 Andy Vaughton
and it's why I always support the charity.
00:26:41 Andy Vaughton
They do a lot of good for research and care and I've seen that first hand as well.
00:26:46 Andy Vaughton
He was amazing.
00:26:48 Eoin Dore
Yeah, he's an incredible guy and the foundation that he sets up, especially with the amount of work his sons are putting into it,
00:26:56 Eoin Dore
Absolutely amazing.
00:26:57 Eoin Dore
You were mentioning there that he's been a bit of an inspiration.
00:27:00 Eoin Dore
Was he one of the inspirations that compels you to, along with Rob Burrow, that compelled you to do the incredible challenge of completing a marathon in under 6 hours?
00:27:11 Andy Vaughton
Absolutely.
00:27:12 Andy Vaughton
It had been on my radar since I started it, but for various reasons.
00:27:16 Andy Vaughton
I was doing other things at the time, so I couldn't do it for the first couple of years.
00:27:21 Andy Vaughton
And then I was worried I left it too late.
00:27:23 Andy Vaughton
I wasn't sure.
00:27:24 Andy Vaughton
I'd be able to do it.
00:27:25 Andy Vaughton
But there were a few things that happened in 2024 where, made me realise that my legs were still strong.
00:27:32 Andy Vaughton
I had still a good amount of endurance in them and I would hopefully be able to get around it.
00:27:39 Andy Vaughton
The strategy that I had to do, the walk running strategy just to kind of manage the cramps and things.
00:27:45 Andy Vaughton
But absolutely, I mean, I wanted to do it because of Rob and I wanted to do it because
00:27:50 Andy Vaughton
because of Doddy.
00:27:51 Andy Vaughton
Sounds weird because they're not here any longer, but it's a way of saying thank you to them and, thank you for being the inspirational figures that they have been in my life.
00:27:59 Andy Vaughton
And like I said, they're unbelievably courageous and brave and really wanted to run it in their name.
00:28:06 Andy Vaughton
And I used them as inspiration as I was going around as well, because, you know, I've been around a while now with the disease.
00:28:13 Andy Vaughton
I've seen a lot of people come and go and
00:28:16 Andy Vaughton
I have that powerful perspective that I'm really, really lucky to still be here, to still be able to do these challenges.
00:28:24 Andy Vaughton
I know they were given anything to do that and that was really powerful inspiration and motivation for me.
00:28:31 Andy Vaughton
You know, when time's tough during the marathon, I just thought of that and you just keep pushing on because.
00:28:37 Eoin Dore
Of that.
00:28:37 Eoin Dore
is
00:28:39 Eoin Dore
absolutely incredible and their stories.
00:28:41 Eoin Dore
I know it's well known, thankfully, due to some fantastic feats that they have done and your feat as well is, I use the words inspirational, but I genuinely find it very inspirational.
00:28:52 Eoin Dore
One of the supports you had for it was Andy's army came together to help you through that marathon journey.
00:29:00 Eoin Dore
I was just wondering where Andy's army came from, Susie.
00:29:03 Susie Vaughton
So it was our very good friend's 8-year-old daughter came up with
00:29:09 Susie Vaughton
Andy's Army because she designed the t-shirts that they were going to wear and she was like, I want Andy's Army to be on the t-shirts.
00:29:16 Susie Vaughton
So it was really sweet.
00:29:17 Susie Vaughton
They made all the t-shirts for them, all sort of matching t-shirts with their names on and everything so that people can cheer the names and things and Andy's Army on as they went past.
00:29:26 Susie Vaughton
So yeah, that's where it came from.
00:29:28 Eoin Dore
Oh, fantastic.
00:29:29 Eoin Dore
And just out of your interest, how did you break the marathon down in terms of both your training and also on the day?
00:29:36 Andy Vaughton
With my run-walk strategy, because I knew
00:29:39 Andy Vaughton
I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing.
00:29:40 Andy Vaughton
I knew I would have to walk bits of it just to give my legs a bit of time to recover.
00:29:44 Andy Vaughton
Whenever I've been running just before coming up with doing the marathon, when I got to about 10, 12 kilometres, my legs would start to cramp, my hamstrings would go.
00:29:53 Andy Vaughton
So I knew that was kind of the limit of a run.
00:29:56 Andy Vaughton
And then I needed to see whether if I walked after that, gave my legs a bit of time to recover, whether I'd be able to run again.
00:30:03 Andy Vaughton
And really, I just had to get
00:30:06 Andy Vaughton
stuck into the training and see how that went.
00:30:08 Andy Vaughton
Because I couldn't go into a long, distance straight away.
00:30:11 Andy Vaughton
So it was building up gradually.
00:30:13 Andy Vaughton
And as time went on, I started to push myself more.
00:30:15 Andy Vaughton
So the longest training run I did, I ran 10 kilometers, walked five, ran 10, walked five, ran three.
00:30:23 Andy Vaughton
And that went brilliantly.
00:30:25 Andy Vaughton
It was really good.
00:30:27 Andy Vaughton
didn't get any cramps at all.
00:30:29 Andy Vaughton
And I realised at that point that I'd be able to do it.
00:30:31 Andy Vaughton
But that really helped, that strategy then, for me mentally, to break down the marathon into much more manageable chunks.
00:30:38 Andy Vaughton
So I actually brought the running back down on the day of the marathon because it was really hot.
00:30:44 Andy Vaughton
So I ran 6, walked five, and I just did it in 11K chunks.
00:30:49 Andy Vaughton
And I was like, I've got to do three of those, and then I'm at 33K, and then I've only got 9K left.
00:30:56 Andy Vaughton
and then I'm going to run three, walk three, run three, and just take each of those smaller chunks as the next target.
00:31:04 Andy Vaughton
And it really, really helped me mentally, actually, just to get to the end of each one of those.
00:31:11 Andy Vaughton
It was nice doing the walking part, recovering, and then getting stuck into the running again, because you feel like going slowly, it's quite nice to speed up.
00:31:20 Andy Vaughton
And yeah, it's just very natural, actually.
00:31:23 Andy Vaughton
It broke it up like that.
00:31:25 Eoin Dore
How did you have to adapt both your running technique and also your ability to maintain nutrition whilst dealing with MND on your marathon run?
00:31:34 Andy Vaughton
I'd had to fashion a sling because I can't hold my arms up any longer when I run.
00:31:39 Andy Vaughton
I can't really run with them by my side.
00:31:40 Andy Vaughton
It feels really awkward.
00:31:41 Andy Vaughton
So I say I didn't really invent it, but I got a sling that I wear around my shoulders.
00:31:48 Andy Vaughton
It's A resistance band, so it's springy.
00:31:51 Andy Vaughton
I put my hands in the end of it.
00:31:53 Andy Vaughton
It feels almost like I'm running normally.
00:31:56 Andy Vaughton
It doesn't quite feel like that, feel a bit crowded around the chest, but it did give me the ability to run in a more efficient way.
00:32:04 Andy Vaughton
The problem with that is my arms still get tired and when they fatigue too much, they stop working and I can't actually get my hands up to my mouth to feed myself and take on water and that stuff.
00:32:15 Andy Vaughton
So I just had a core group of friends and family who were just constantly carrying water for me,
00:32:22 Andy Vaughton
constantly popping gels into my mouth, electrolytes, fussing over me for the whole of the marathon, which was lovely and keeping me cool.
00:32:32 Andy Vaughton
I did overheat a bit.
00:32:33 Andy Vaughton
I think it was how I run.
00:32:34 Andy Vaughton
Like I said, it is a bit crowded and at one stage I got really, really hot kind of in the middle of it, but it was like 25 degrees in Leeds, which is unheard of.
00:32:42 Eoin Dore
I was going to say, you never expect that to be in Leeds.
00:32:46 Andy Vaughton
Not at all.
00:32:47 Andy Vaughton
I wouldn't have been able to get around without their support.
00:32:49 Andy Vaughton
They were awesome.
00:32:50 Andy Vaughton
You stuck with me the whole way around.
00:32:52 Andy Vaughton
And again, it was like the rugby was really fun, running with your mates, running with family.
00:32:57 Eoin Dore
And you were saying the people of Leeds were amazing as well as went through in terms of like messages and cheers.
00:33:03 Susie Vaughton
It's a fantastic atmosphere in Leeds.
00:33:05 Susie Vaughton
The whole city turns out and they're massively supportive of the marathon and it's just a really fun atmosphere.
00:33:12 Susie Vaughton
It's a really great marathon to do.
00:33:14 Andy Vaughton
Really uplifting.
00:33:15 Andy Vaughton
Like it was brilliant.
00:33:17 Andy Vaughton
And you need it at times, when you're going to, there's some quieter parts on the run and then you come back into a more crowded section and it really lifts you and just, helps you keep pushing on, helps you get to the end.
00:33:28 Eoin Dore
Well, congratulations to you and to Andy's Army for that because that is a hell of an achievement.
00:33:34 Eoin Dore
How was the recovery?
00:33:35 Eoin Dore
Did it involve Guinness?
00:33:37 Andy Vaughton
Unfortunately not.
00:33:38 Andy Vaughton
So we finished the marathon about, I can't remember, it's like 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday and
00:33:46 Andy Vaughton
on the way down to the marathon, had been contacted by BBC to see if I would come on to the BBC Breakfast show at 7 on Monday morning.
00:33:55 Andy Vaughton
So it was a rapid turnaround.
00:33:57 Andy Vaughton
We went out for a meal, I was pretty knackered, and then had to get up at 4 in the morning to get a taxi over to the BBC Studios and go on to BBC Breakfast and do an interview, which was pretty punchy.
00:34:10 Andy Vaughton
Yeah, and then recovery was okay actually.
00:34:12 Andy Vaughton
After about 3 days,
00:34:14 Andy Vaughton
The legs felt pretty good.
00:34:15 Andy Vaughton
I go to a personal trainer twice a week and I went to him the Monday after and actually realised the legs were still really fatigued.
00:34:23 Andy Vaughton
We were doing some weights with them at that point but then a week after that everything was back to normal.
00:34:29 Eoin Dore
In terms of life for you day-to-day, I know that you've mentioned that MND now predominantly affects your shoulders and your arms.
00:34:37 Eoin Dore
What does day-to-day life look like for you?
00:34:39 Andy Vaughton
Much the same as before.
00:34:41 Andy Vaughton
I just
00:34:42 Andy Vaughton
I don't have the structure of work any longer, but I try and keep a relatively structured week just to work around that.
00:34:49 Andy Vaughton
Everything's a bit trickier, so everything takes a little bit longer.
00:34:52 Andy Vaughton
I'm still pretty independent.
00:34:54 Andy Vaughton
I can get dressed by myself, but sometimes we'll ask for help, just if I'm feeling lazy or trying to conserve energy.
00:35:03 Andy Vaughton
You'll help me sometimes, don't you?
00:35:05 Susie Vaughton
I think you do need.
00:35:06 Andy Vaughton
Like buttons and zips and things like that.
00:35:07 Susie Vaughton
I think because it's so routine for us now and it's a very gradual, gradual thing, the help that he needs becomes...
00:35:15 Susie Vaughton
So every day now you do actually need help every day.
00:35:19 Susie Vaughton
But it is gradual day.
00:35:21 Susie Vaughton
He was going away with some of the other boys to Portugal and so they're there to support him.
00:35:26 Susie Vaughton
I wasn't going to be then.
00:35:27 Susie Vaughton
I told him to wear this zip-up hoodie, although that's really warm.
00:35:30 Susie Vaughton
And he said, no, I can't because I can't take it off or put it back on at the airport.
00:35:35 Susie Vaughton
And they went at the security.
00:35:37 Susie Vaughton
And I was like, what do you mean, of course you can?
00:35:38 Susie Vaughton
He goes, no, Suze, you do that.
00:35:40 Susie Vaughton
You just don't realise you do it.
00:35:42 Susie Vaughton
So it all sort of happens
00:35:44 Susie Vaughton
Because it's happened gradually, I don't actually realise that, yes, I zip his hoodie up and I unzip it and take it off.
00:35:51 Susie Vaughton
So it's a strange thing because it is quite a gradual change, but now you are needing more.
00:35:58 Andy Vaughton
Yeah, I definitely need more help.
00:35:59 Andy Vaughton
But I still can still drive.
00:36:01 Andy Vaughton
So I basically have a full-time job as a taxi driver running the boys around everywhere.
00:36:06 Eoin Dore
Yeah, with three kids and a dog, I imagine that is a full-time job for you.
00:36:09 Susie Vaughton
He still coaches our youngest son's rugby team as well.
00:36:12 Susie Vaughton
So yeah, you can...
00:36:14 Andy Vaughton
I still do that.
00:36:15 Andy Vaughton
I do, I go to the gym, I have a personal trainer a couple of times a week.
00:36:19 Andy Vaughton
He pushes me really hard.
00:36:21 Andy Vaughton
I get a huge amount out of those sessions.
00:36:23 Andy Vaughton
And yeah, my legs keep getting stronger and I get, sometimes I get small gains in upper limbs and you know, it's very powerful and positive changes for me despite the kind of ongoing progression.
00:36:37 Andy Vaughton
I didn't get it early on.
00:36:38 Andy Vaughton
I get more now.
00:36:39 Andy Vaughton
I do get fatigued.
00:36:40 Andy Vaughton
So I am mindful of that.
00:36:42 Andy Vaughton
Sometimes I just have
00:36:43 Andy Vaughton
I have to have a day where I don't do so much and take it easy and have a bit of a rest.
00:36:48 Andy Vaughton
Still try and play golf.
00:36:49 Andy Vaughton
I can still kind of get around with shorter courses in my own unique way.
00:36:54 Andy Vaughton
I've still got a pretty good short game.
00:36:56 Andy Vaughton
It's just the long game that suffers now.
00:36:59 Andy Vaughton
And yeah, and the boys, like, you know, they keep me very busy.
00:37:03 Andy Vaughton
We go out and they're heavily into rugby as well, so often I'm going out for kick-up outs and things like that.
00:37:09 Andy Vaughton
And yeah, and then walk the dog.
00:37:12 Andy Vaughton
And then things like this pop up all the time.
00:37:14 Andy Vaughton
So I get invites to do talks in places.
00:37:18 Andy Vaughton
It helps keep my mind sharp.
00:37:20 Andy Vaughton
And I've been invited to do some teaching at Bournemouth Hospital in a couple of months.
00:37:27 Andy Vaughton
And just things kind of just keep popping up.
00:37:31 Andy Vaughton
And the charity stuff keeps us busy as well.
00:37:33 Andy Vaughton
We've got a big gala dinner tomorrow actually in Bournemouth.
00:37:39 Andy Vaughton
And there's been a lot of organisation and preparation around that.
00:37:43 Andy Vaughton
I have only been doing a small part of that and there's a committee that have put a huge amount of work into that as well.
00:37:49 Andy Vaughton
But yeah, I have a role to play and things like that.
00:37:52 Andy Vaughton
And then thinking about the next challenge and that takes a degree of organisation.
00:37:59 Andy Vaughton
And then I'm not sure if I'll actually help you or not with your writing, probably not.
00:38:06 Susie Vaughton
Yeah, I bounce ideas off, but poor Andy is a captive audience now for me to bounce ideas off.
00:38:12 Susie Vaughton
A fantastic testing lab before your next bestseller, Susie.
00:38:17 Susie Vaughton
But psychologically, also, you try, we try and stay in the now and today and this week.
00:38:22 Susie Vaughton
Is it a good day today?
00:38:23 Susie Vaughton
What can we be grateful for now?
00:38:25 Susie Vaughton
As all those cliches are...
00:38:27 Susie Vaughton
you don't actually realise how important they are until something like this happens and you're like, actually no, it is, you need to be present in this moment.
00:38:34 Susie Vaughton
Is this a good moment now?
00:38:36 Susie Vaughton
Is this a good week now?
00:38:38 Susie Vaughton
We don't live so much in the future.
00:38:39 Susie Vaughton
We're not massively planning for the future.
00:38:42 Susie Vaughton
You plan ahead with the challenges and things.
00:38:44 Susie Vaughton
I hope that you will be okay for them, but really it's being in the present moment and being happy in the present moment with our family is what we try and do.
00:38:55 Eoin Dore
Touching just upon that and some of the things that you've mentioned, Andy, I think we've talked about the challenges of clinicians struggling to accept support and help.
00:39:06 Eoin Dore
From the lessons have you learned, what would you like our listeners to know about?
00:39:12 Andy Vaughton
I think to acknowledge if you're struggling, I think it's important to reach out.
00:39:17 Andy Vaughton
This is all quite hypocritical because I didn't really do that.
00:39:20 Andy Vaughton
but certainly with hindsight and lessons learned, I think it's really, really important to appreciate when things aren't going great and to acknowledge it and to reach out.
00:39:33 Andy Vaughton
I think I've got a bit better with that.
00:39:36 Andy Vaughton
I like to talk things through with people.
00:39:38 Andy Vaughton
When I first got diagnosed, I just wanted to shut up shop.
00:39:42 Andy Vaughton
I didn't want to talk to anyone about it, but I luckily realised quite quickly that was the wrong thing to do and I have a great group of mates and they
00:39:50 Andy Vaughton
quickly just push back against that.
00:39:52 Andy Vaughton
And they were like, came to see me, wanted to chat to me all the time.
00:39:57 Andy Vaughton
And I realised that, was the best therapy for me, that you needed to talk about it.
00:40:03 Andy Vaughton
And to acknowledge the grief, I read an article quite early on which talks about letting the grief pass through you rather than fighting it.
00:40:11 Andy Vaughton
And I think that's really, really important because you have to do that, you have to accept it to be able to try and
00:40:19 Andy Vaughton
to try and move on and try and get back to a place where you can be happy again, anywhere you can live.
00:40:25 Eoin Dore
Thank you so much.
00:40:26 Eoin Dore
I think the lessons of trying to understand that and talking to people is so important and one of the things I will be taking away from today, you've raised an incredible amount, over 200.
00:40:38 Eoin Dore
1000 pounds for MND research, which will be hugely beneficial to those charities.
00:40:45 Eoin Dore
What are your hopes for the future of MND research and care?
00:40:48 Andy Vaughton
That Moore's done.
00:40:50 Andy Vaughton
It's still vastly underfunded as a disease where there is nothing.
00:40:55 Andy Vaughton
And by that, I know there's a couple of medications that you can take.
00:40:59 Andy Vaughton
My personal view is they're not effective.
00:41:01 Andy Vaughton
They're not meaningful treatments at all.
00:41:03 Andy Vaughton
There's certainly no cure.
00:41:05 Andy Vaughton
There is
00:41:07 Andy Vaughton
Hopefully stuff on the horizon, always keep hope that there will be something.
00:41:12 Andy Vaughton
I think some of the gene therapies coming through give the community a bit more hope that there might be a breakthrough at some point in the future.
00:41:23 Andy Vaughton
But it's a pretty desperate place.
00:41:25 Andy Vaughton
It's A devastating diagnosis.
00:41:27 Andy Vaughton
There's no hope at the moment.
00:41:30 Andy Vaughton
And until there is actually something concrete, all the noise for me is meaningless.
00:41:37 Andy Vaughton
There actually needs to be a medication that is effective either in slowing down progression or hopefully a cure.
00:41:45 Andy Vaughton
But until that is actively available, and this is my time at Bruce, but it doesn't mean anything to me.
00:41:54 Andy Vaughton
I want to see something there.
00:41:55 Andy Vaughton
But it's going to require a huge amount more fundraising, a huge amount of more money to be able to fund these breakthroughs, and that's so important.
00:42:05 Eoin Dore
Thank you.
00:42:05 Eoin Dore
And I know that you are so active and I think loads of people hear your story of how you have just so gone after fundraising that they will be inspired to do their own bits.
00:42:18 Eoin Dore
But I know that we've mentioned previously that there might be another challenge on the horizon.
00:42:23 Eoin Dore
Can we get any previews?
00:42:24 Andy Vaughton
Well, so I'm hoping to do a continuous 100 kilometre hike around the Jurassic Coast.
00:42:32 Andy Vaughton
It's a Jurassic Ultra.
00:42:35 Andy Vaughton
Signed up as Andy's Army, raising money for My Name's Dolly Foundation again.
00:42:39 Andy Vaughton
And I can give you the link if you want.
00:42:41 Eoin Dore
Oh yeah, please.
00:42:42 Eoin Dore
Because I was just, my next question was going to be like, how can we, for the listeners who are inspired by your story, how can they help out?
00:42:49 Eoin Dore
We'll put the link into that incredible fundraising activity into the bio.
00:42:53 Andy Vaughton
Brilliant.
00:42:54 Andy Vaughton
Thank you.
00:42:54 Eoin Dore
Lovely.
00:42:55 Eoin Dore
Thank you so much for coming in today and being so open with us, Andy and Susie.
00:43:00 Eoin Dore
I feel emotional just from interviewing you guys.
00:43:03 Eoin Dore
So thank you.
00:43:04 Eoin Dore
And it's been an amazing talk and an amazing episode to be part of.
00:43:08 Eoin Dore
So thank you very much.
00:43:09 Andy Vaughton
Thank you.
00:43:09 Andy Vaughton
Thanks for having us.
00:43:10 Susie Vaughton
Thank you.
00:43:13 Eoin Dore
Thank you to the listener for joining us on the discussion of Andy and Susie's journey with MNT.
00:43:21 Eoin Dore
I'd like to ask you to share the story with anyone that you think would find the journey they've been on inspiring.
00:43:28 Eoin Dore
Please do look at a link in the bio.
00:43:31 Eoin Dore
We'll have lots in there, including Andy's rugby game in Bournemouth.
00:43:36 Eoin Dore
And lastly, I'd like to ask you to subscribe to Anaesthesia on Air for more podcasts like this.
00:43:42 Eoin Dore
Thank you so much.
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