Al Vaughn sat in a gym adjacent to his Sarasota home and delivered the understatement of all understatements: “I take pride in my physical fitness.”
The thing is, that physical fitness was all but evaporated just one calendar year ago.
"I said, ‘Doc, what's going on?’ She says, ‘You have throat cancer,' ” he said. “Hit me like a rock. I never saw it coming.”
The diagnosis was near-crippling: Stage 4 throat cancer.
“I don't have a problem telling you that I got in the car driving home and tears started coming down my face,” he said. “I thought, this is how it ends.”
Only, it didn’t. Vaughn lost 51 pounds off of his muscular frame, which he’d developed over four decades of amateur weightlifting. He’d won multiple bodybuilding championships around the globe.
But, cancer was a different kind of opponent.
On Jan. 29, 2015, he had a biopsy done. He endured seven weeks of radiation five times per week and needed chemotherapy once per week for 2-3 hours each time.
“It was rough,” said Vaughn.
He was so upset with the new look of his dwindling body that he couldn’t even look in the mirror. Still, his determination to beat cancer never dipped.
“Second place was not an option,” he said.
His last treatment was April 30. On Aug. 19, 2015, he was pronounced cancer-free. He resumed weightlifting immediately and in November reached a goal he’d been chasing for years.
"It was a big one. I almost had tears where I saw he's winning and he brought the trophy in here,” said Vaughn’s doctor, Fadi Kayali of Florida Cancer Specialists, while looking at a photo of his patient holding the Mr. Universe trophy. “It was a very emotional moment.”
When his birthday rolled around in December and Vaughn needed a new license plate for his car. He knew exactly what vanity plate he needed to display.
“Mr. Universe,” he said humbly, looking down at his Florida tag reading MR UNVRS.
Cancer competed but it’s hard to be Mr. Universe.
