David Smith tells of his joy after receiving his MRI results

Lots of people refer to this lockdown as self-isolating, and I am also guilty of saying it.

But it couldn’t be further from the truth, as my phone has never stopped ringing as I’ve been catching up with friends.

Is it strange that I have probably been more sociable than normal during lockdown?

There was one particular phone call I was waiting for with bated breath this week. That was the call from my surgeon’s team to deliver my latest MRI results.

So as the world’s athletes waited to see if the Olympics were going ahead or not, I sat waiting for my phone to ring on Thursday. It would be either the greatest moment of my life or another one of those sinking feelings that I have experienced so many times before.

When the phone rings with number withheld, I know this is the call. I feel my body going into stress mode. My heart is beating fast, my palms are sweating and I’m shaking so much I almost drop the phone.

Then this very calming voice says: “Good afternoon David, how are you?”

I ramble on about people sunbathing in the park!

After about five minutes, the lady says: “Your scan looks great and we are not worried about it. Everything is stable.”

God, it was like my world paused for a second and I exhaled the breath I had been holding. I am okay? I am stable? I was so lost. Radiotherapy is working. I have a stable scan.

I could have cried.

I sat on the terrace breathing the fresh air saying to myself I am the luckiest person alive.

Moments like this show me I need nothing more in life than my health to make me happy.

As reality came back to me with the news of more people dying and people not following the advice to stay in, I thought back to that term, self-isolation.

This is a powerful expression. For people with an extroverted nature, the thought of being trapped in a room on your own for weeks, maybe even months, is a terrifying one.

For others this might not be much of a change in lifestyle.

But the power of words is incredible and the reaction we have when we hear certain words can trigger a stress response that can lead to burn out.

So I prefer to refer to our current situation as physical distancing. While this is also not great, its crucial in saving lives.

I know first hand what it is like to be in an ICU bed unable to breathe and I can tell you it’s a very scary place to end up.

So on Thursday night when the nation clapped for our NHS workers I had a tear running down my face. I couldn’t help it, and I am sure many cried across the country.

I have spent the last 10 years in our health system and I know these nurses and doctors in ICU are run off their feet already without the added stress of Covid-19.

I remember when I came around in ICU in Queen Square London in November 2018 from my fifth surgery and was struggling to breathe and panicking.

A young nurse sat by my bed all night to make sure I was safe, her compassion towards a complete stranger like me was incredible.

I thought of her last night and what she might be facing now whilst all we are asked to do is stay home and watch tv.

What is heart warming is how something bad can bring out the good in lots of people.

Last night I spoke to my neighbour from my window, so maybe this will help build communities as we are going to need each other to get through this.

Maybe that will be the positive that comes out of this, a more compassionate society, where we have people like nurses and doctors as role models, a world where our children are influenced by NHS workers rather than Instagram influencers.

It occurs to me that the feeling lots of us are experiencing right now will like a kind of paralysis.

I remember thinking, God I can’t move. Then as the weeks turned into months and I still couldn’t move I started to become frustrated and depressed.

I guess many right now feel the same way, it’s like their lives have been paralysed, our identities lost. Even though there is light at the end of the tunnel, none of us know how long the tunnel is. One of the main causes of anxiety is uncertainty and we are in uncertain times right now.

For Olympic athletes, you could tell uncertainty was causing lots of distress, so I was happy when the IOC made the right decision to move the Games to 2021.

I love sport and love the Games but this is bigger

than sport and we all need to focus on helping and supporting each other through this.

Maybe this is a time where sport gives back? For years as athletes we have been lottery funded, with the support of the nation, so maybe this is a moment sport could say thank you, by not focusing on winning medals but by somehow helping the nation.

Glasgow Warriors have done this by teaming up with Well-Fed Scotland to provide food to the community. My good friend Steve Bate told me British Cycling could have cyclists delivering food packages to the vulnerable.

I know how scary it can be living through this as a vulnerable person.

As I watched a 4,000-bed makeshift hospital being built in the ExCel centre, I couldn’t help but think I hope we don’t need those beds.

Then you think of the people who may die from this and have no loved ones around and it is heart breaking. The freezer trucks parked behind New York city hospitals for the dead show just how hard it will be on the front line during the worst public health crisis in our time.