COME and see me in August. That was what my doctor told me at the end of five hours of hospital appointments yesterday.

She said there were three paths that could now be taken by the tumour. It could just die, shrink and disappear. Or alternatively, it could die, but remain there – not doing anything. Or thirdly, the option which doesn’t bear thinking about, the radiotherapy hasn’t worked and the tumour comes back. The truth is it is too early right now to say which of these is the case.

Obviously, any unknown makes you anxious but she reassured me. She said, “you’re recovering amazingly, just get on with life”. And as soon as I walked out that hospital my first thought was how much I can’t wait to get to Geneva to cycle round Lake Geneva with a friend, or go home to Aviemore this week to see friends and family and attend one of my pals’ wedding.

The busier you can be and the more goals you set, the less time you are going to be sitting thinking about tumours. So I just try to cram in as much living as possible.

I have not been back home since around June last year but I’ve booked my return train tickets. I will go back to my mum’s up in Aviemore, do some miles on the bike, see some of the guys, get some rest, get some nice air, it will be nice to spend some time with the family as well. It is always nice to come back to Scotland.

It has been a week of roller-coaster emotions for me. But then there’s been a lot of them recently.

For starters, I met someone I know who told me that they had three months left to live. I didn’t want to say, “No you don’t” but I felt so sad that he had accepted this and kind of looked like he had given up. I know we are not all the same but this really moved me. I was hoping he was going to say, “I am going to fight this and not give up hope”.

While he still had his humour and made me laugh I felt very sad. Here is the hard truth of life, I thought: life is not fair, sometimes things go wrong through no fault of our own or bad decisions we make in the spur of the moment. We will all face some sort of adversity in life.

Some of us bounce back time and time again and others really struggle. Then there was the biggest ride I had had since surgery, 30 miles of pure pain and pleasure. It felt amazing, apart from the pain in my neck that was brutal. I couldn’t take the smile off my face, even when I was passed by pretty much everyone else I encountered on a bike. The great thing about having so many surgeries is that the ego dies along the way.

When I see fellow people out on the cycle paths of London these days, I am just happy to see people out enjoying their bikes. Some amateur cyclists think a gentle spin through London is the Tour de France. Not like I have much choice anyway. I tried to pass someone on the hill in Richmond Park to only look down and see myheart rate at 188bpm and moving so slowly I was about to start going backwards. The look the guy gave me as he stepped on the pedals and moved away again said, “Look at this muppet with all the gear and no idea”.

He then just proceeded to cycle away up the hill leaving me in his trail. It was a far cry from the Alps last year. There then followed a tricky ride home through London traffic.

Cycling on the roads is horrendous, honestly. The cars have been great but it is the pollution in the lungs. I am so used to cycling in the Alps or Scotland where the air is so clear.

But I made it home, collapsing on my bed to awake three hours later. What a feeling, I thought. I thought back to January when I couldn’t even stand and felt pretty proud to have survived my biggest adventure post surgery. Wednesday was back to psychology in the cancer centre, and as you will know from my column I love the mind and how it works.

The support I have had from UCLH and Macmillan is incredible. It’s nice to be able to unload all your fears and talk through them with someone who has lots of experience working in this area. I told her my biggest fear is that I am going to get lots of tumours all over my body. I thought this is not a great mindset to be in but one I think which comes from my current environment, where the last seven months have all been about tumours.

So we worked on overcoming that. My first step was to sign up to a mindfulness course for eight weeks, then book that train ticket to Aviemore next week to go home and cycle on my home roads in the Cairngorms.

My friend confirmed that we are cycling around Lake Geneva on the June 30 so I need to get fit. The great thing with writing this down is it’s like a contract, a contract to myself that I will see through no matter what. So the next stop is an eight-hour train journey home followed by some great riding with my mates. I will come and see my doctor again in August. But first I am going to cram in as much living as possible.