My name is Andrew Livingstone, I was diagnosed with ET after a rollercoaster journey of mostly negative emotions, uncertainty and a lot of tests before finally getting a diagnosis in early 2023 that I had ET. I then spent most of last year working with doctors to get my medication levels right. I consider myself to still be quite young, albeit not as fit as I once was, but wanted to get involved to support the MPN Voice teams amazing work. I knew any money I was able to raise would have a direct impact on research into MPNs and potentially support finding out more about their cause and hopefully, ultimately, a cure.
Why did you decide to take on a fundraising challenge?
Being part of the ‘Walk to Support’ campaign for MPN Voice felt like the opportunity I needed to do something positive in relation to the tough path I’d been on to learn I had an MPN. It won’t be my last fundraiser either, I will be looking out for more opportunities to join or run events and will be looking to doing the walk again next September!
What would you say to other people considering fundraising?
Just get out there and give it a go. Do as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. Fundraising gave me a real sense of pride and purpose, as well as a feeling that I was doing something that would contribute to helping others with the same condition as me. I decided to go all in with the long 20km option as I wanted to set myself a decent challenge.
Equally, the challenge has really helped me to come to terms with my diagnosis; being able to share the purpose of the fundraising with friends and colleagues made it easier to talk about my personal health journey and hopefully helped to raise awareness of what are less well known conditions.
What was the biggest challenge for you?
The actual organisation of the walk itself was actually the hardest part of it. Thankfully I had a really supportive group of friends, family and colleagues who not only chipped in with the organising but were also really generous with their donations.
In the process of this fundraising journey what have you learned about yourself?
That I overestimated my fitness levels whilst underestimating how far 20km actually is. I definitely have no sense of distance as 20km is a lot further to walk than I had initially envisaged!
I definitely thought taking on the full distance in one go would be achievable so I did next to no training other than just general walking during my commute to work and the odd stroll at weekends. There were certainly no planned training walks in the lead up…much to my regret on the day.
I also feel lucky to have the support of some wonderful people who wanted to get involved and support the walk on the day. They didn’t take much convincing and I am really grateful for the support they showed, not only on the day of the walk, but in general, since my diagnosis.
And how did you feel when hit £4000 as you absolutely smashed your initial target? Did you expect to raise so much
I was truly overwhelmed with just how much support I received both in terms of donations and people supporting me to walk the route too. In all honesty, I went into this more just as a challenge for myself and had no expectations of how much I would raise. I also had no expectations of people joining me for the walk and was prepared to cover the 20km on my own. Never underestimate human kindness. It has been a great overall experience.
