Jet lag is never a nice feeling, and I made the rookie mistake of arriving home and giving into the temptation of a nap. It didn’t help that I have been reading the book Why We Sleep.

After finding an incredible routine in Jamaica, arriving back in London has taken some getting used to with hospital letters, scorching temperatures and pain that reminded me of waking up in ICU.

I have struggled to find the energy needed to train since coming back, so I decided not to fight it and just let my body rest and recover.

As you know, I love finding inspiration from many different people and I knew I was in need of some motivation this week. I have really missed competing this season and miss my cycling team-mates. Being part of the team means the world to me as I get to share my friends’ success. I don’t have to look far on my team for inspiration. As I sat working on my hand and foot rehab in my living room I call Steve Bate.

Steve is preparing for the world championships and to defend his time-trial title in Holland before he sets his sights on Tokyo Paralympics.

I guess it’s a paradox me saying setting his sights on these races, because Steve is registered blind. Steve and I started our cycling journey at the same time and in 2013 I would drive us both down from Aviemore to Manchester.

I will always remember going out on a ride where we mis-timed the light and ended up riding along some country road in the pitch black, sitting on the back of his wheel thinking to myself I must be mad sitting on the wheel of a blind dude in the dark.

We have a running joke between us that when we met my life went down hill fast having four more surgeries as his went up hill winning Paralympic medals, world titles and world records on the tandem with Adam Duggleby.

I think lots of people give us a strange look when we say this, but it’s this humour that makes me love my team-mates so much. Through each of these surgeries I have had a photo of some of these mates next to my bed to remind me of why I fight to live.

Steve’s life was already on a high before we met. Like all Paralympic athletes he found opportunity and strength in the obstacles life presented him. A gifted climber he started to loose his vision and was told he could possibly go completely blind, which meant he would be unable to lead people into the mountains.

Like me, when he was faced with an obstacle he set a new goal; his first was to climb El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park which is about 3000 feet from the base. I’m not sure what’s worse, being able to see the ground or being visually impaired and not knowing the distance, but Steve achieved his goal, climbing it solo with ropes. He said it was one of the hardest things he had done.

This is the very same rock face that had us on the edge of our seats as we watched Alex Honnold free solo up it in the movie Free Solo. His climb has been defined as possibly one of the greatest sporting achievements in our life time.

I was blown away by Honnold’s psychological approach to this challenge. I was as intrigued about his mental approach than the physical task itself as it made me think about how we deal with fear and the anxiety around uncertainty.

This is something that I would say is one of my biggest challenges now, the fear around uncertainty. It’s not the tumour but the spinal cord injury that’s left me with this fear, so it’s a daily challenge to overcome this or become a prisoner of my own body and home.

As I think back to the day I left for Jamaica, I couldn’t even walk through the airport. I was sat in a wheelchair being pushed to the plane, and at one point I referred to myself as a patient. It reminded me that although I bare scars on my neck, the biggest scars are the ones you can’t see.

As Tokyo approaches fast my place on the GB team will come under pressure, so I need to stop having tumours and start competing. All I want is one fair shot at training and racing without surgery. Since coming into the sport I have never had a full winter and summer to really test myself, so now I pray with radiation over this will be my chance.

Unfortunately I only have 11 months to turn myself into a medal-winning athlete.