What a weird year. I re-read my previous letter and just like every other year, it’s quite amazing to see what has changed and what has stayed the same.

I guess let’s start with the changes. What strikes me reading what I wrote last year is just how lost, uncertain and distressed I was about both the present and the future. I still had a lot to accept about reality and evidently felt like I had so much to prove, so much to compensate for. I didn’t know my place in the world, but worse the only places I could see and the only routes to take I didn’t like, or felt an awful lot of trepidation about. I was taking tentative steps out into the world again and that was always going to be a tough process. I’m not sure how much faith I had, in myself or anything else. I’m proud that I pushed onwards regardless.

Despite Covid, I have achieved an awful lot in the past 12 months. That’s one of the benefits of doing these letters; it not only gives me the time to reflect, but forces me to; I think it’s also making me better at giving myself credit for the progress I’ve made. In hindsight, having both a competitive and productive personality and being forced to abandon a high-power career was always going to leave a hole in my ego. For a while my ambition was rudderless. But after three years I am finally putting things together; I’ve trialled exoskeletons, begun to support others with spinal-cord injury, got engaged, put an offer in on a house and employed three personal assistants that I’m really happy with. I’m grateful for the support I’ve been surrounded with that has allowed me to dedicate the time and effort required to put my life back together. I’m not as tired or as lonely as I used to be. I’m confident that with Covid restrictions lifting in the UK I’m psychologically and physically ready to go out into the world with purpose.

What hasn’t changed? I still get sad sometimes; I think that’s just going to be an unassailable fact of my life. I lose less sleep over it though. Life is still hard. I’m still insecure and unsure of my purpose in life; this was probably true before my injury, but medicine really puts your life and future on rails, giving you a very set path: now I’m 27 and I’m not sure what I am. I don’t feel young, and I’m not sure how to turn the last three years into something meaningful. I think that writing has given me the greatest satisfaction out of anything I’ve done since my injury, and the feedback I’ve gotten has been really positive; writing itself is just so hard. For every thousand words I put out three thousand must get deleted. In the future I would like to write more and care less. I’ve written some fiction that might end up seeing the light of day sometime in the future.

I was in hospital for a routine procedure recently and the surgeon asked me if I was a doctor. I replied that I used to be, and she said that you never stop being a doctor, and that I worked hard for the title. Perhaps she was just being kind. I don’t really feel like a doctor anymore and I think that’s fine; I have seen my friends and my fiancée progress further in their medical training and it is not hard to realise I have less and less in common with them professionally. In hindsight I’m not sure if I ever would have been completely satisfied with my medical career. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t matter now. I’m starting to realise I have something, not only a unique perspective but an engaging way of delivering it, that’s worth something to the world. I have spoken to many people who have read the things I’ve written and taken something from it and that’s a great feeling. I like public speaking too, although none of that has occurred in the last 18 months for obvious reasons. Getting back to that would be great. I have also been wondering about doing a podcast for about two years and I really should just bite the bullet and do it.

Hopefully I should be able to write a book and contribute to the blog over the next year and really progress that craft to a point that gets me recognised. I have been writing things for the blog, I promise! I’m just too hard on myself and sometimes it is just really difficult to get the words out in a way I’m happy with. To everyone who reads the things I put up here, thank you so much for your ongoing support and hopefully there will be much more stuff here this year.

I’m optimistic that next year’s letter will be just as optimistic and even more satisfied than this one. I feel like a grown man who has asserted himself in the world more than I ever have post injury. I need to make sure it stays that way.