FOR once, the future is unwritten for Stephanie Millward but Corsham’s Paralympic heroine is in no doubt that she has earned herself a rare period of uncertainty.

The Wiltshire swimmer is back in the United Kingdom after finally achieving her dream of adding a golden shine to her shimmering medal collection at Rio 2016, with Millward topping the podium in the S8 100m backstroke and 34-point 4x100m medley relay.

A silver in the 200m individual medley and bronzes in the 100m and 400m freestyle completed a show-stopping haul for the 35-year-old, who also swam at Beijing 2008 and London 2012, where she claimed four silvers and a bronze.

Having finally achieved her golden ambition in South America, Millward says that she truly believes in dreams coming true but what happens next with her swimming career is, for now at least, in the lap of the gods.

“My dad (Mike) said to me ‘what are you going to do next?’ and I said that I have absolutely no idea,” said Millward, who had mum Linda and her partner Nick Woodall, as well as the Paralympian star’s husband Adrian McHugh in the stands at Rio’s Olympic Aquatics Stadium.

“He asked me if I’m going to get back into the pool or am I going to go and get a job, and I just don’t know.

“I’m usually always so organised, so it feels so strange to not know what’s going to happen next. I’ve got some time off and I’ll just have to see if I miss being in the pool.

“A gold medal was something that I’ve been striving to achieve for such a long time and to get one was just incredible.

“I was confident that I could do well in that race (the 100m backstroke) after the heat and that I would might have the gold in the bag.

“So I wanted to go out and enjoy the final and hopefully I’ve set a record that won’t be broken for a long time to come.

“My mum, her partner and my husband were there. I kind of had an idea where they were sat and when I blew a kiss to the crowd, it was for everyone but especially for them.

“In life, dreams don’t usually come true, so it’s so amazing for that to happen and I’m so, so happy.

“The support I’ve had on Facebook has been amazing and I’ve had two-and-a-half thousand e-mails – I’ve got to find time to go through them all.”

Millward arrived back in the country on Tuesday and turned 35 during her flight back from Brazil, which led to a special tribute from her Great Britain team-mates.

She added: “On the flight back, the day turned to the 20th whilst we were flying and everybody sang happy birthday to me.

“I got a bottle of champagne and a bag of toiletries and that was so, so nice.”