Freak accident means even bigger mountain to climb

feel I have a purpose and an identity. I know Dr Steve Peters would have lots to say on this subject but I guess the simple part of it is I feel free cycling.

I can hardly walk along the street yet I can cycle for hours. It’s my escape and being stuck back in a bed I feel more like a patient again, not an athlete. It’s a psychological battle now just as much as a physical one.

But just as I start to feel sorry for myself I hear the news of Fernando Ricksen. I sit reading the news and thinking of what he must have gone through over the last six years. How can this happen to such a great athlete?

I don’t follow much football but as Rangers manager Steven Gerrard said this week’s Europa League win was a fitting tribute to his life and his young family.

It reminded me of my second surgery in 2014. There was a guy in the bed opposite me. He had been brought in after his legs gave way when he was out running. One morning, when the doctors did their rounds, I heard them tell him he had Motor Neurone Disease. He had one question: how long do I have? They told him his body would slowly lose the ability to move.

He was a very fit man but I just remember him telling me that was it, and bursting into tears. I lay opposite looking at him and felt so helpless knowing what to say. As I learned to walk, I passed his bed each day and would stop for a short chat about athletics and the joy of running. Life can deal such hard blows and is a reminder that we have to get the most out of every day we have on this earth.

All athletes have a relationship with pain, but this kind of pain I am over. I was chatting with the physio as his elbow pushed into my glutes. He asked me if I didn’t mind the pain. I just said I have had so much pain that there were times in hospital I was ready to close my eyes and never open them again.

He then asks what kept me going. And as my Paralympic friends will tell you, or anyone who has had to fight for their life, it’s a will to survive, something deep inside.

Compared to that, this back pain is a minor hurdle. I have reframed it into a sign I needed to slow down a bit. I will stay in the present and enjoy the road back to Glasgow.

Read David’s columns as he goes about his recovery in Sport every Saturday