On Skydiving, Chronic Pain, and The Assholes at U.S. Customs and Border Protection

And why I’ve paused paid subscriptions.

Hi, friends. By now you’ve read enough of my posts to know how I usually begin them: Some out of context hook designed to draw you in before I back up and give you the backstory. It’s a cheap trick, I’ll admit, but effective nonetheless. Today’s post, though, will be a bit different. Today, you see, I’m in too much pain to think of a creative intro with which to hook you in. Indeed, while life has been very very busy and has left little time to write, pain has been a big part of the reason why I’ve so significantly slowed the pace of my Substack posting. But this story doesn’t begin with pain, it begins with the sensation of plummeting to the earth from roughly 13,500 feet in the air. Hmm. Maybe this intro isn’t quite so different after all.

“Close your mouth because you’re ugly.”

I’ll never forget the advice I received from my first skydiving coach. In his broken English, drenched in a thick Quebecois accent like gravy over a sloppy poutine, he looked me straight in the eyes and said: “Gill, close your mouth because you’re ugly.” He was right, and I have the photos to prove it. Overweight and exposing my surprisingly flexible face to terminal velocity the first time, it was clear I needed to do as my instructor said, or at least purchase a full face helmet. I could write many posts, perhaps even an entire book on the topic of skydiving; I’ve done a fair bit of it. For the purpose of this post, however, all you need to know is that when I turned 18 and no longer needed parental consent I made the decision to jump out of an airplane. The experience stuck with me, and I always swore I’d go back and get my solo skydiving licence. A few years later, I did exactly that.

Photo courtesy of my skydiving couch Gilles, who told me I’m ugly.

My first foray into skydiving didn’t last particularly long. After a solo license and only a dozen or so jumps to my name life got in the way, as it tends to do. I graduated from university, took on renovating a house that needed more work than I ever suspected, maintained a long distance relationship, and then enrolled in a trade school when it was clear my expensive university degree was indeed of no value in the real world. There was no time for skydiving, and as days turned to weeks, then months, I mourned the loss of my badass new hobby. Years later, a birthday trip to a wind tunnel (indoor skydiving, if you will) reignited the passion I knew had never really died. I got back into skydiving, slowly at first, managing a handful of jumps each season. And then, with little warning, skydiving more or less took over my life. I spent the next three years traveling to various skydiving events, sleeping in my car and subsequently in my van, even working in the sport as a videographer. By the time my neck pain was too significant to ignore, I was quickly approaching my 800th skydive.

One of my favourite photos ever, courtesy of Valerie Bisson.

Another of my favourite photos, also courtesy Valerie Bisson.

A real pain in the neck.

Ah, yes, perhaps it’s time to bring pain into the equation. While I've spent much of my life in pain (childhood accidents, surgeries, gastric issues, depression, etc.) the pain in my neck became too significant to ignore by my early 30s. Misdiagnosed with osteoarthritis after an initial x-ray I was told there was nothing to be done, that I would have to find a way to manage the pain until the end of my days. And so, I kept on skydiving. The pain, though, evolved, spreading into my shoulder, then down my arm, all the way into the tips of my fingers. While painful much of the time, at other times I also experienced this numbness, soreness, and weakness. On the worst of days I would find myself dropping things because I no longer had the grip strength in my right hand to hold onto them. Even turning a doorknob would often be more than I could handle. Sometime in 2018 I finally found a doctor who took my symptoms seriously and referred me for an MRI, which took place in 2019, because Canadian healthcare. And wouldn’t you know it, the MRI revealed significant disc protrusions, a pinched nerve, and some spinal stenosis to boot.

Cases like mine are often treated with extensive physiotherapy, and indeed, it took years of physio to get my pain under control and regain mobility in my neck. The pain never went away, but it was manageable, and the alternative to constant physio is the somewhat frightening prospect of spinal fusion surgery. I’ve spoken to a small handful of people who have undergone similar surgeries and they’ve hailed the procedure as life changing. That said, even the most zealous advocates admit that the trade off to pain relief via surgery is an often significant loss of mobility. As an avid cyclist I’m quite afraid to lose that mobility, as even with it I still manage to get hit by cars (read all about that particular adventure here).

I can’t say for certain if skydiving is the cause of my chronic pain. I did, after all, spend many years destroying my body through self employment. Skydiving, though, certainly took its toll in a number of other ways. For starters, I was always broke, choosing to proverbially throw my money out of an airplane rather than save for a more conventional house purchase or establishment of family. Who would I start a family with anyway? With skydiving eating up most of my weekends and subsequently entire seasons then years, my social life suffered significantly. Skydiving, for me at least, was pure escapism. It’s hard to focus on your worsening mental health when you’re plummeting to the earth at terminal velocity. I certainly enjoyed the challenge, (making shapes with 59 other skydivers out of 3 separate yet simultaneously flying airplanes is all kinds of fun) but if I’m being honest, though I was distracted and having fun, I wasn’t particularly happy or fulfilled.

Probably the most badass picture of my butt that's out there on the interwebs. Probably. Photo courtesy of Byrd's Eye Studio.

‘Murica

Yet it wasn’t the pain that put an end to my skydiving “career,” it was U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Skydiving is and always has been a niche sport, particularly in Canada. With options to jump within the Great White North few and far between, I, like many within the skydiving world, found myself making frequent extended trips into the U.S. I would often stay in the U.S. for up to six months at a time, sleeping in my van, driving from event to event across the entirety of the United States. On one particular border crossing, one particularly overzealous asshole of a border guard asked how I could afford to spend six months of the year in the U.S. (something that’s pretty easy to do when your only rent is gas and the occasional paid parking spot). Before I could offer any reply, the border guard in question accused me of coming to steal American jobs. Next thing I knew my carefully packed van was being carelessly torn apart by border agents while I was detained and questioned for hours. I was put on a U.S. watchlist, this despite holding a NEXUS card (a trusted traveler program). Henceforth, each and every time I would try to cross into the U.S. I would be detained, questioned, ultimately let in on an I94 limited stay visa, and to add insult to injury; forced to pay for the pleasure of said visa.

After my disastrous border experience, despite my many dozens of quick and easy past border crossings, the pace of my trips to the U.S. slowed to a crawl and my skydiving slowed with it. By the time I moved to Vancouver I was only managing a handful of jumps a year (didn’t help that most of my money went towards paying Vancouver’s exorbitant rents) and started feeling too rusty to feel safe in the sky. And then I adopted Lucy, the sweetest disabled dog there ever was, and my priorities immediately shifted. Looking back, I’m grateful to have experienced my border horrors many years ago and not in today’s U.S., one in which even legal residents are kidnapped and deported. Ultimately, my quasi banning from the U.S. may have been a blessing in disguise, as I don’t know how much damage I would have done to my body before finally wisening up, and how much pain I would ultimately be in.

The stenosis strikes back.

Ah, yes, pain… Don’t go thinking I’ve fixed everything by spending countless hours in physiotherapy and no longer skydiving. The pain is back, but with a vengeance. Perhaps it’s been the work of taking care of five dogs that’s retriggered the pain, or the work of renovating a house, or of working a piece of land with the goal of creating an animal refuge. Perhaps I’ve let myself get too out of shape, or perhaps it’s a matter of wear and tear on a body I’ve spent four decades abusing for both profit and pleasure. Whatever the case, the pain is so much worse lately. As my right arm dangles from my side like a sausage in a butcher shop window (sorry, vegetarians, I’ll try to think of a better, non-meat-related analogy) I’m reminded that chronic pain is an invisible illness much like any mental health disorder. I wonder what’s next as I await another MRI to see how much my spine has degraded and what can be done to alleviate my symptoms.

Yes, I am indeed trying to turn this little piece of paridise into an animal refuge.

Oh, right, I write about mental health…

The pause in my posting, which has mostly been dominated by dogs of late, has given me some time to reflect on the platform I swore I wouldn’t give up on like I have with Medium, Blogger, and the various iterations of my personal website. Substack has changed significantly in the seemingly short time I’ve used the platform. Long-form posts, though not entirely absent, have in large part been replaced by video reals, photos, and short notes. It’s almost as though Substack is trying to brand itself as an everything app, but for writers? It’s very confusing. What’s worse, AI generated content has started popping up, and may in fact be prevalent. On a platform where I once felt my voice could be heard and I could openly discuss my mental illness in the hopes of shattering stigma, I’ve started feeling like just another content creator. Substack, in short, is starting to feel like a hustle. For this reason, among others, I’ve decided to turn pause paid subscriptions to my publication.

Honestly, if you’d like to throw any money my way, do it through my Buy Me A Coffee page, where I fundraise to feed shelter dogs, and work towards building an animal refuge. I’m not giving up on Substack, for all its faults I still find much of interest and value here. My posting may have slowed, but I’ll do my best to share as many stories as time, energy, and pain permit. Stories of mental health, of navigating the many pitfalls of the medical system, of travel through an America that is in many ways unrecognizable to today’s terrors, and of course, lots and lots of dog posts.

Current status. Photo courtesy of my wonderful partner in crime, life, and dogs.

Thank you for reading my Adventures in Antidepressants (and Dogs.) If you’re enjoying these posts and would like to read more, please share this or any other post, like and comment to help game the algorithm, and please subscribe for free. Every interaction makes me feel seen, validated, and encouraged, and hopefully helps break the stigma surrounding mental illness. Thank you for all your support and encouragement so far.