Today I find myself sitting in a hospital waiting room for my annual MOT. It’s not at the John Radcliffe or the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, I’m required to go back to Stoke Mandeville.

Stoke Mandeville is the home of the National Spinal Injuries Centre and where I spent 10 months in hospital recovering and learning to live my life as a wheelchair user. During my time here I experienced some of the lowest lows but also moments of real joy with staff, friends and family.

It is impossible to spend 10 months somewhere and not have a bank of memories, especially given the circumstances.

As I roll through the doors I feel an odd sensation. It has a sensation of coming home but also returning to a place of great sadness. Sort of like going to a church where you have been to a wedding and a funeral.

My procedures are an ultrasound scan and an X-ray. Lying on the bed looking at the strip lighting reminded me of the months I spent bed-bound staring into those ceiling tiles wondering how this thing happened.

For some unknown reason every bed has these ugly-themed curtains with red kites flying and images of Buckinghamshire on.

I guess it’s supposed to cheer you up, but every time I see them pulled around me it just brings back feelings of desperation, loneliness and the unknown, trying to put together the pieces and the trying to understand what had happened.

This is a feeling I have learnt to forget but each check-up, and the hideous curtains, evokes feelings of times gone by. It’s a hard thing to ignore.

When you are admitted to Stoke Mandeville they tell you that you are a patient for life, which is reassuring but it also means you have to come back.

The strangest part is seeing all the newly injured – forlorn looking, physically weak and clearly at a loss as to what the future looks like. I remember that feeling.

Waking up after having walking dreams and realising it is all real and you have a long journey ahead of you. I kept my head down and tried to look away. I don’t need to be reminded of that phase.

The good news is, it has been six years since my 10-month stint in rehab. I’m fit and independent but I still have health issues that are unresolved and mean it is necessary to be a patient for life.

I guess the ghosts of Stoke Mandeville will always be a part of my life. Every time I go back I see familiar faces and the smiles that greet me are followed by a compliment about my appearance, clearly I look better now than I did in those acute days.

Often I go to the physio gym, the cafe and see my favourite nurses on the wards.

Today I was going to have a coffee in the cafe and visit the wards.

But seeing the curtains was memory enough on this occasion.