Finding Good through Flatwater

**Apologies for the duplicate emails!* Welcome to FINDING GOOD FRIDAY! On the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month, I'll be sharing only uplifting stories to kick off your month and weekends the right way. Today is a good one...

When my return back to life was just beginning after rehab, I started working for the wholesale giant, Costco, as a front-end associate. It was 2009, and the world was still recovering from the most severe financial crisis since the great depression. But for the first time since being diagnosed with cancer in 1995, I felt happy and free.

Being front and center at Austin's most prominent discount warehouse meant I had the chance to see thousands of people each week, friends and strangers alike. Old teachers, past teammates, close friends and familiar acquaintances, they'd all somehow end up in my line or, in many cases, waited for me intentionally.

One such stranger was a stoic man who asked softly, "Do you mind if I ask what happened to your jaw?" He stated that he was a dentist and wanted to learn about my treatment. When I told him I battled cancer as a kid and only recently recovered from years of addiction in chronic pain, he told me that he was currently battling cancer and it was meant to be that we'd meet that day.

His name was Dr. Richard Garza and I'll never forget him. In the months that followed, Dr. Garza had made a point to visit every few weeks and we'd always have a sidebar conversation about his treatment, my recovery, or about his son, Mark, who was in the process of creating a charity that focused exclusively on the person fighting cancer instead of the disease itself.

In addition to Costco I had a part-time job working at RunTex, the iconic running shoe purveyor with customers like Willie Nelson and former Governor Rick Perry. At the Lake Austin RunTex location just a few hundred feet from Town Lake, our boss Paul Carrozza had partnered with another fitness entrepreneur, Nick Matzorkis, to launch a new company: SupATX.

Paddle boarding was all the rage in California and, expectedly so, in Hawaii, and Nick thought Austin - with it's sprawling lakes, rivers, and creeks - would be the perfect place to grow the sport. SupATX partnered with RunTex to host demos and lessons on nearby Lake Austin and Town Lake (now Lady Bird Lake - but it will always be "Town Lake" to us locals.

The idea was a good one. We were booked solid for weeks. And I personally fell in love with paddling. Just a few weeks after meeting Dr. Garza for the first time, he dropped in to Costco once more. I told him I was busy training for my first ever triathlon and had recently taken up paddle boarding. His eyes lit up. "You need to meet my son, Mark."

As luck would have it, I met Mark just a few weeks later at a paddle demo with Austin Paddle Sports, a new shop that had recently opened by our mutual friend, Andy. I quickly learned that Mark and his friend Rob McKinnie were in the process of creating a new charity event called "Dam That Cancer" where paddlers would raise money to support mental health services for cancer patients and their families, and celebrate the effort by paddling all 21 miles of Lake Austin from Mansfield Dam to Tom Miller Dam.

DTC was the inaugural event for the Flatwater Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing mental health therapy in the wake of a cancer diagnosis. Since inception, Flatwater has raised $8.3 million toward funding more than 60,000 therapy sessions by connecting individuals with therapists to help clear their mind, heal their body, and find the strength to take on a diagnosis.

I was privileged with participating in the first three editions of DTC. And I am THRILLED to share that I will be rejoining the inspired Flatwater family at this year's Dam That Cancer! I can't wait to reunite with Mark, Chelsea, and the rest of the Flatwater Foundation team as we continue to support anyone affected by this disease.

Water is life. Being in, on, and around water has proven to be therapeutic and restorative in myriad ways, and I can't think of a better way to help my fellow cancer warriors than through the support of Flatwater.

Please consider a donation to my Flatwater fundraising page and stay tuned for some fun events as we continue the work of preserving the mental health of cancer patients and survivors.

See you on the water!

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