YOU get some looks when you are living a normal life with a spinal injury.

It is a constant flux of surfing furniture around my house and using every wall outside my home to stay upright.

I am always one step away from a fall.

That means one step away from finding my face up close to the pavement – with onlookers thinking I am drunk.

Managing the stares is something I have kind of got used to over the years.

I tell myself people are just curious.

I’m still nursing my wounds from my latest fall off the bike and looking at my paralysed fingers thinking they might actually be broken.

I didn’t feel it at first as my head and neck were more of an issue, but as they got better I started looking down at my hand and thought those fingers don’t look right.

It does sometimes feel like each week is a struggle.

All I want to do is focus on sport and compete, however living with such a high level spinal injury makes that goal feel almost impossible.

Those who have followed my journey will remember how I spoke about the idea of amputating my paralysed arm.

This notion came back to my thoughts this week when I saw an athlete in America remove her arm.

In her words, she described it as a weight which had been lifted from her. She felt free. This sent my mind into overdrive.

By Thursday morning I was looking online again to find a doctor who would cut it off.

I started to think ‘okay, I am not losing my arm’ but I would be gaining freedom from this heavy weight attached to me.

With all this going on and the possibility of a fresh lockdown, I decided to go back to where I almost see as home now and that is a small shack next to Kingston and my surfing Rasta family who I spent most of last year with.

Scans, paralysis and London drivers just start to break me mentally.

Over the last few weeks all I kept thinking about was my death and I started to feel trapped.

Trapped by my tumour and paralysis. I know this is not a good headspace and the best place for me to be is somewhere I can train and think about sport.

As I write the last line of my column this week, the plane is just about to take off.

In 10 hours, I will be in Kingston, Jamaica and free of my thoughts.

Maybe I am running.

I am not sure, all I know is 11 years of tumours and this spinal injury has left me in a place mentally that either requires constant psychological meetings or sport.