After a climbing accident I am paralyzed. This is what I learned about life

I have heard the same sentence over and over again: “You will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life”' and then I saw these people and thought, this is my ticket to adventure. Even during those first six weeks of my five-month rehab process, I was searching Google for sea kayaks to buy and talking to friends about adventure.

I was inspired and that meant I really loved rehab, which was kind of like being selected for the Special Forces Reserve or climbing, where you do things wrong, you struggle, and then you come back the next week and you get it done. They teach you to use a wheelchair that none of us are familiar with. You spend a lot of time falling out, doing it wrong, and doing it again. It's a very gradual process, a crash course in learning how to be independent with the disability.

Two weeks after we were discharged from the hospital, Ellie ended our relationship. She couldn't cope with our new circumstances.

Her leaving really challenged my understanding of my situation. Suddenly I thought, “If someone who loves me unconditionally can't love me like that, what's the point? Is life worth living?” I thought, “Oh my God, this is the end of my love life, it will never be the same again.”

I didn't want to be here anymore, but Kate, one of the physiotherapists I had been working with for the last five months, said, “Look, I know it's not easy to think positively right now, but I want to encourage you to think about the person you want to be in four years' time. Be ambitious and be brave.”

Soon after, I decided to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics (postponed to 2021 because of Covid) as a canoeist – a sport I had never done before. Three months after being discharged from hospital, I applied for a trial day at the National Ward Sports Centre in Nottingham. I was awful. I was upside down more often than upright, but I didn't give up. The head coach said, “You've got no talent, but you've got the right attitude.” I kept getting invited back and made small but determined progress. Then they asked me to join the team.