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Living with MND: Andy’s Story · Anaesthesia on Air

• 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.