When Jill Yoneda steps into the water for a marathon swim she knows for certain two things are ahead based on her past experiences – physical pain and deep emotions.
In 2017, she went swimming “on a whim” from Port Angeles to Victoria. The next year she did 76 km across the Georgia Strait (and back), raising more than $16,000 for Canuck Place, B.C. and the Yukon’s only pediatric palliative care provider.
So she dives into the waters of the Salish Sea on Aug. 9 knowing the next two days will be gruelling. The Saanich woman will attempt to swim from Brentwood Bay, through Sampson Narrows and Porlier Pass to land at Jericho Beach in Vancouver to raise funds and awareness for Canuck Place.
“Until my body absolutely stops, I’m going to keep doing it for them,” she told Black Press Media.
Now 22 surgeries in, the Saanich woman is accustomed to pushing her body beyond its limitations.
Yoneda was an avid scuba diver until she got decompression sickness. While healing from the injuries, doctors discovered the likely source of the illness – a hole in her heart – and advocated dropping the sport.
With the allure of the sea still calling, Yoneda discovered freediving, and she was good at it.
A former member of the Canadian national team, Yoneda is a three-time national record holder. Her deepest dive went 200 feet and could hold her for breath five minutes 35 seconds, in dynamic apnea – a type of training used by freedivers to improve their breath-hold abilities while swimming horizontally – she swam sixth lengths of a pool or 150 metres.
Yet the danger still existed. Faced with quitting she said “forget it.”
“So in 2010 they fixed the hole and I went even deeper.”
Near the end of her freediving career, she was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease. Dr. John Sun put in artificial disks and three months later she competed in Nice, France – where she blew another disc.
It was the final blow.
While she was forced out of the sport, she couldn’t leave the water.
“I had to be in the ocean. So I started ocean swimming,” Yoneda said. She “got hooked” on marathon swimming from that first Port Angeles to Victoria trip on a whim.
Now she trains regularly at Thetis Lake and Willows Beach, where seals will swim beside her, back and forth and back and forth. It’s far from her only encounter with wildlife.
Her last swim from Nanaimo to Sechelt and back, her boat captain watched a humpback in the distance change course to check her out.
“It literally surfaced right beside us,” Yoneda said, recalling the awe of the sight. “My dream is to have orcas swim nearby.”
Unfortunately on that swim, she also dislocated two ribs and learned she had a rare slipping rib syndrome. Every stroke of her right arm she shifted the arc and underwater pull to tuck the ribs back in place. In a bid to keep swimming, those ribs were removed by thoracic surgeon Dr. John Samphire.
Training two years ago she felt two go on the left, and had those ones wired in place.
They’ll be put to the test this go round.
“This swim will be a test to see if that holds,” Yoneda said.
While physical pain is a given and the potential for injury is high, she’s also confident there will be emotional pain. Fortunately, the swim also comes with healing only the ocean can provide.
“I swim through my grief, the tears just disappear in to the water,” she said, calling the ocean a “safe and sacred space.”
In particular, this swim, Yoneda holds her late cousin in her heart.
“He really wanted to be a doctor on my next swim,” Yoneda said. “He was the epitome of living with compassion. He would have been an excellent physician.”
Her cousin, Joshua was 27 and in his last year of med school at UBC when he was suddenly diagnosed with a rare cancer of the spine. He died two years ago, 10 months after this diagnosis.
“He died such a horrible tragic death in a hospital room,” Yoneda said, in yet another affirmation of the critical need for the pediatric palliative care that Canuck Place provides.
The swims for a cause are rooted in family.
Yoneda remembers her grandparents as among the most selfless people, despite having everything taken from them during B.C.’s internment of Japanese residents.
“Even though Canada was so awful to them, they always believed in giving back,” she said.
Her uncle Garth, their son, is an avid and longtime volunteer with Our Place.
Yoneda figured she had a skill she could use for good.
And Canuck Place does good work – operating 13 patient beds and eight family suites through two hospices in Vancouver and Abbotsford. Services include medical respite and family support, pain and symptom management, a provincial 24-Hour Clinical Care Line, music and recreation therapy, education and art, grief, loss, and bereavement counselling, and end-of-life care.
All at no cost to families.
Canuck Place raises approximately 60 per cent its annual operating funds.
While raising critical funds, Yoneda also aims to record new marathon swim route – 109 kilometres from Brentwood Bay to Jericho Beach in Vancouver. It’s an extension of a route from North Saanich to Tsawwassen finished by support team member and former youth swim club teammate Rob Dyke (known for successfully circumnavigating Vancouver Island in 2005).
Yoneda is confident she can swim it – as long as she can stay awake the anticipated 50 to 60 hours required.
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