THERE are moments when planet sport stops revolving, halting if only for a merciful interlude from all the prattle about giving 110% or taking one game at a time.

One such instance occurred yesterday morning when Meggan Dawson-Farrell pulled up her chair under a table at the People's Palace, Glasgow, and talked about the "quite hard" journey to selection for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Dawson-Farrell is 21 and an established world-class wheelchair athlete who holds every Scottish record in every distance from the 400m to the marathon. She will compete in the T54 1500 metres at Hampden Park next year. The athlete's little local difficulty involved "four or five brain ops" from December 2012 through to February this year.

There is a surfeit of patronising nonsense written about para-sport, much of which demeans the athlete while serving only to supply false credentials of empathy for the observer. Dawson-Farrell's quiet words stripped all this superficiality away, leaving only the testimony of an extraordinary competitor.

In the world of sport where a pulled hamstring can be calamitous, when a broken bone can threaten a career, it may be instructive to pause and consider what precisely caused that "quite hard" time for Dawson-Farrell. She explained all without drama. A sufferer from spina bifida, she is prone to hydrocephalus, an accumulation of fluid in the cavities of the brain. This is treated by inserting a shunt, that is a valve which drains the fluid from the brain, carrying it to the parts of the body. "The shunt snapped and the fluid was draining into my neck," she explained. "So I got poorly and got an infection and it was eating away at my brain. I had a big hole in my head."

There followed operations at the Southern General and a period of recuperation there. Dawson-Farrell, frustrated at following other athletes' training programmes on Facebook, tried to convince her father to bring in her "rollers", a sort of treadmill that allows her to practise indoors. She said she would have rolled on with her drip at her side. The small smile suggests that she was joking. One never knows, given the will of the competitor from Tullibody.

Her sprint towards the top has been swift, even though the obstacles have been considerable. Dawson-Farrell only became interested in sport when she was "dragged, kicking and screaming" to a camp in Largs by her mother and father. "I was about 13 or 14 at the time," she said. "After three days at the camp, I did not want to go home."

Her sports career up until then had been restricted by health and safety concerns and the difficulties encountered in trying to provide facilities for wheelchair users. There was the almost absurd moment when Dawson-Farrell was allowed to train in a gym, but only with a carer present. But the gym temperature was sometimes too low so the carer had to leave, with athlete in tow.

This led to considerable frustration for an athlete who wanted to maximise every session. The experience, though, was an education of sorts. Her advice to anyone dealing with a disabled person wanting to take part in any activity is simple. "We don't bite; ask us what we can or can't do," she said.

It is clear how she prospered, however. "Determination," she said, when asked how someone who had brain surgery at the start of the year could be back in competition, having achieved her qualifying time for the Games with some ease. She expanded on her ability to recover quickly: "It is about believing I could get there and knowing that I had that in me. I wasn't giving in."

The doctors, possibly knowing their patient, did not give her precise instructions about a return to training. "They said: 'We can't stop you but have a bit of time off'."

At first, Dawson-Farrell was restricted by the scars on her stomach from recent surgery to fit the new shunt. "You have to lean over while racing," she explained of the difficulties posed. The rest is only explicable to those accustomed to dealing with competitors with a goal. Within a month, she was competing in Dubai and returning home with three medals. "I want to get better," she said, "so as soon as I can get back in my chair I'll do it."

Now, 300 days from the Games, she can celebrate selection and outline plans for a campaign that she hopes will end in the tangible achievement of a Commonwealth medal. She is one of the first 27 athletes chosen for Team Scotland and is joined in her event by Samantha Kinghorn, from Kelso, who at 17 is the youngest athlete to be selected so far.

The immediate programme for Dawson-Farrell includes "knuckling down" to some road racing and then heading to Portugal for some warm weather training.

Her inspiration is her parents, John and Kirstie, who opened up the world of athletics to her. But does she realise that she, too, serves as an inspiration? "I do sometimes," she said. "But I just feel like an ordinary person. Obviously I have some issues and problems. I just get on with it. It is all I know. I just live life."

This life is now focused on her first major championships. There will be nerves, there is certainly anticipation. The Commonwealth Games will have an athletes' village that is inhabited by all, from the able-bodied to the wheelchair user. It is a development that is welcomed by Dawson-Farrell. "You are in there with everyone. All together," she said. " It means we are not different." But still extraordinary.