Episode 28, Part 2: Mental Health Care with the Flatwater Foundation and Mark Garza

[00:00:00] Mark Garza: We are a resource for learners, including every member of the Live Strong Cancer Institute’s, on track educational pipeline from middle school to residency. We are a growing collection of interviews, talks and experiences that uncover the myths and the uncertainties of cancer and careers and cancer in order to empower and inspire generations of thinkers and leaders.

[00:00:25] Mark Garza: This is cancer. An education and empowerment podcast by the Live Strong Cancer Institutes.

[00:00:45] Eugenio Sobrevilla: Welcome back to Cancer Uncovered. I’m with the Live Strong Cancer Institute at the Dell Medical School here at the University of Texas at Austin. And in the second part of our conversation with Mark Garza, the founder of the Flatwater Foundation, a nonprofit that provides mental health services to families impacted by cancer.

[00:01:01] Eugenio Sobrevilla: We’ll be covering the personal impact that is foundation is taking on our seizures and also the future of the Flat Water Foundation. We hope you enjoy. Thank you.

[00:01:14] Eugenio Sobrevilla: Thank you for going through the, the process and the, the founding of the organization. Uh, I’ve also been wondering, has, has there been any impacting stories of people accessing care with you guys? Has there been any ones that you find very

[00:01:30] Mark Garza: memorable? Yeah, that’s a great question. The neat thing about what we.

[00:01:36] Mark Garza: yeah. We talk about anonymity and hipaa, et cetera, and so unfortunately, a lot of what we do is privatize for the protection of health information, which in our country is obviously a very important thing. We have to balance that. It’s not about something to be embarrassed, because like if, you know, for so long it’s like it’s, we’re not hiding this, this isn’t a, you’re not anonymous because it’s embarrassing.

[00:01:57] Mark Garza: You’re anonymous because it’s, you know, Because it’s a law and like we, we, we have to protect your information. Yeah. Um, really early on, the cool story that was over like probably 10 years ago, that really sticks with me. There’s two that stick with me. We get cards and emails and stuff all along and 90% of them say that I would not be here if it wasn’t for Flatwater.

[00:02:17] Mark Garza: I would, and that’s pretty heavy. That weighs on me a lot. Yeah. That gonna be emotional right here. We hear very, very often that you saved my life, or I would not be here today. Mm-hmm. Um, we even filmed some testimonials when people say, Hey, I wanna tell my story. And that comes up almost always. Mm-hmm. So that there’s, that, it will always stick with me.

[00:02:35] Mark Garza: We’re doing this interview and she’s, she shares with me that she, um, has struggled with this cancer and with everything she’s going with her life for so long, but she never got care and she didn’t get care. because if she was to go get help, she would be deemed ineligible for the work that she does because of, uh, going to counseling and that on her record, having the therapy and counseling on her record.

[00:03:02] Mark Garza: would’ve been a sort of a strike against her for her mental wow. For the job that she does. Mm-hmm. . And so she was prioritizing her livelihood of her work, her her income. Wow. And eventually, after seeing and watching what Flatwater does and learning about us, and then kind of getting closer to the organization and, and feeling the importance through our message, she went for it and was like, I’m gonna do this.

[00:03:26] Mark Garza: Yeah. And she told me that the craziest thing about this is that Flatwater. is not because of these HIPAA protections for the organization we put in place. Yeah. We were less effective, some would say for data mining and Sure. You know, maybe I seen a lot of those things that I think are incredibly important in our, our vision.

[00:03:46] Mark Garza: But early on it was cool because she said, , y’all were de-identifying me in your system, so I didn’t exist in your system. And I could go see my therapist privately and it wasn’t like an EAP or something else. Yeah. So your organization came along and just said, forget about the other stuff. Let’s just get this person in care.

[00:04:03] Mark Garza: This one person, it’ll never, I’ll never forget. And so she was like, that convinced me, I’m gonna go get help. But after doing it for a couple of sessions, it occurred to me that this is more important than anything in my life. Mm. and I left my job because I wanted to tell them I am doing this for myself and I’m getting better.

[00:04:24] Mark Garza: Mm-hmm. , and I’m a better person for it. and if that means that I can’t do my job, then I can’t do my job. For me to decide. She was saying like that was for her to decide. Mm-hmm. , that she needed to step away from it, not her employer because she was getting stronger. Yeah. To me the message you know about therapy is for the strong.

[00:04:45] Mark Garza: Hmm. The only way to see somebody is sort of unfit to accomplish what they’re working to do, whether it’s their employment or anything else, is that they’re not taking care of themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And so that’s just it. That’s that was that those are systems that are in place to say like, well, you’re unfit because you’re not taking care of your mental health and seeing a therapist, oh, you’re seeing a therapist.

[00:05:04] Mark Garza: you’re sick. And then we do have a small equine therapy program that’s very limited, but it works very well for families that families in particular, and that that meant that talk therapy doesn’t really work. So we built a partnership that we created, but it’s now, now located out in, in Driftwood. Mm-hmm.

[00:05:20] Mark Garza: But we are able through wonders and worries and some of other partners to find some people that, that need help and send them there. And one family was, I mean, they’re all, you know, three women. Yeah. Three generations of women and the grandma and the daughter. were there for the mom. The mom was the cancer headed cancer diagnosis, and they were going to the equine, and you never get on a horse.

[00:05:40] Mark Garza: It’s energy work, it’s equine assisted, the, oh, there’s not writing. It’s not writing therapy. It’s just energy work. Anyway, she passed away. The mom, the middle woman, the middle generation, the mom passed away and the family chose to have her life celebration. Her remembrance in the pin with the horses . I know.

[00:05:59] Mark Garza: Wow. Um, uh, and Celebr. and they said it was just the greatest celebration of life. They, I’ll never forget the story of them blowing up balloons and having them ready to go and they wanted to release these balloons for the mom and do everything, and they went to go, they blew up the balloons and tied ’em up and they were ready to go and release the balloons and.

[00:06:16] Mark Garza: they started laughing so hard because they were just blew up the balloons. They didn’t use helium in the balloons, just kinda . And they were so, there’s such a great illustration of like, so many things going on when we lose. Sure, yeah. A family member to forget the helium is why the balloon goes up. But it was, um, it was a blessing because they laughed and laughed and laughed and had the greatest time.

[00:06:36] Mark Garza: And I will never forget that story in this one, you know, of, of, like I said, 55,000 hours and thousands and thousands of people that we’ve helped. Um, so Cool. So thank you for asking that. It was a long answer, but No, I love it. That was beautiful.

[00:06:51] Eugenio Sobrevilla: Thank you. Yeah. Um, based on your experience with Cancer and Thought Water Foundation, what advice would you give to student nurse that are interested in pursuing healthcare as a career?

[00:07:05] Mark Garza: Sure. I think that anybody and everybody that’s thinking about he. not just as a career per se, especially as a career, but just in general as a, as a part of our lives. I think we all need to be thinking about what works and what doesn’t. Mm-hmm. , and I think that I touched upon that a little bit, just general life and, and also our own business and our own organiz.

[00:07:31] Mark Garza: but also as you’re growing and going into a career, there’s so much opportunity and there’s so much sort of white space out there, and there’s also so much great research and stuff that’s established. So in all of those spaces, we have to look at what’s working, what’s not working, and try to be a part of improving and making things better.

[00:07:49] Mark Garza: Mm-hmm. , because so much is done because it’s always been done. Mm-hmm. That’s the way we do it. Yep. And so much has been accomplished. by us, by Flatwater. We’ve done things that need to be better in general. There’s nothing that’s not a negative, but if we have more and more leaders and more and more doctors thinking about what the problems are, how can we effectively create better outcomes by prioritizing stuff that might not have been prioritized in the past?

[00:08:19] Mark Garza: There are no rules against how we help people. There are only standards that we have set, so I think. if, if we can get people thinking about how to break molds, how financial models from the past, how insurance, it could, doesn’t even be healthcare. It could, you could be in insurance, you could be in medical device.

[00:08:38] Mark Garza: You could be just in general. But I think that that’s, that’s the best approach I could, the best advice I could, I could maybe give, I don’t know if it’s advice so much. . A hope . Yeah. No, that’s good. One thing I wanted to make sure to touch on too, and you and I talked about this kind of in our pre-discussion for this, but it really stuck with me that you saw a need.

[00:09:02] Mark Garza: Mm-hmm. , you saw a gap, you took action to sort of, , not sort of to fill that gap. But, um, this stuck with me in our interview before, was taking action is not a substitution for taking care of yourself and working through grief. Mm-hmm. , do you mind sort of sharing with us, like, how do you, how do you take care?

[00:09:23] Mark Garza: How have you taken care of yourself in all of this? You’ve brought up a perfect, um, uh, a perfect opportunity to discuss something we brought up, which was, um, failing.

[00:09:33] Eugenio Sobrevilla: Mm-hmm. . ,

[00:09:37] Mark Garza: um, , uh, of being okay with failing. And I failed at that. Like, you know, it was, it’s funny cuz you start with it, with the problem and then you see the solution.

[00:09:49] Mark Garza: Oh my gosh, this mental health is therapy has changed my mind. And it’s really, I, I say it saved my life. It put my life in a new perspective. Yeah. In a new path. Yeah. Um, that than what I was in. But I think honestly, that’s one of the things that. I’ve learned moving forward, uh, in life. And they can share with others so they don’t have to go through it.

[00:10:08] Mark Garza: Mm-hmm. You know, like this, I, I started Flatwater cause they didn’t want people to have to go through what I went through. Mm-hmm. now running Flatwater. I also have then probably prioritized the work, um, the work the needs of the, of the, of the people. of making the organization better and then we’re hit with this pandemic, for example.

[00:10:26] Mark Garza: Mm-hmm. , and I don’t think I was prepared enough like the rest of the world to prioritize myself. Mm-hmm. . And so I was so buried into what the organization was doing and the needs of it, and how we were no longer able to put so many people into care because of many reasons. Yeah. Most people practicing people don’t want to.

[00:10:44] Mark Garza: virtual. They need to see somebody, but they can’t. Yeah. Um, and then people couldn’t go into cancer centers. Yeah. Yeah. So now we’re getting stage four diagnoses. Mm-hmm. . So now it was more and more, I was getting emails, more and more emails with like, this isn’t good, you know, this is no longer stage one.

[00:10:58] Mark Garza: And, you know, two we’re these, everybody’s at stage four. Yeah. Because they haven’t gone into the oncologist for two years. So I didn’t really, for a while, um, do that. And all it did was teach me how, how important it is to pri prioritize. One’s self. Mm-hmm. . It comes down to, I felt, I felt like quite a hypocrite.

[00:11:18] Mark Garza: Right? Like I felt, and I don’t say that to like pity and self pity, but I felt like dad was able to see. , you started this because the caregivers are a big focus of what Flatwater does. We don’t just take care of people that have cancer. Right. It’s like my mom. Right. People would say, how’s your dad? How’s your dad?

[00:11:36] Mark Garza: Great. My mom is, you know, my mom’s going down a big path. Yeah. That like, we don’t wanna see. And she got help and she got better. And not everybody can do that. Yeah. But. . I then became sort of in my head, this caregiver because we created this care program for all these people and I wasn’t prioritizing myself because I wanted to be sure everybody was getting care.

[00:11:58] Mark Garza: Yeah. I was, uh, I was, through my actions, I was participating in that same thing. Mm-hmm. , you know, you’re always talking about the importance of mental. . You have to remember that it’s not about for other people, it’s your own mental health. Yeah. And if I’m not there to do this, if our staff isn’t there to do this, we need to prioritize our own lives and the times we spend with our kids and our family.

[00:12:21] Mark Garza: And so within the organization, the number one thing when we with staff and hire, I’m also HR you, you’re a lot of things. Yes, sir. So from an HR perspective, we joke about, but family first and do work on your time when you need to do the work because failure is not doing the work. Yeah. But. failure is also not being there for your family and being there for, for, for the team.

[00:12:43] Mark Garza: So to me, self-care is, that’s how we take care of it. It’s reminding one another, but also each other. That like doing to do, get to that soccer game. Get to your kids recital. Yeah. Do the work when you need to do the work. And if we aren’t trying to make ourselves fully engaged and happy, finding happiness, we’re not gonna be good at, at helping others.

[00:13:05] Mark Garza: Yeah. and I got back into, back into care and, you know, counseling and, um, also, you know, blood panels and making sure that my organs are functioning well and doing wellness scans and stuff that I’m fortunate enough to be able to do, um, to watch my own health because, uh, because of this daily reminder. So

[00:13:30] Eugenio Sobrevilla: I want to go back to.

[00:13:32] Eugenio Sobrevilla: advice for,

[00:13:33] Mark Garza: for students, please. I love, I love that approach. So you, you came from a marketing background.

[00:13:38] Eugenio Sobrevilla: Mm-hmm. . . I, I’m just wondering, did you ever see yourself working in anything like this? Never. You had to leave that

[00:13:47] Mark Garza: and No, but I think, uh, that’s a really good question. I did not, growing up, um, and then going through college, you know, I was fortunate enough to, to go to school that I wanted to go to school and enjoy my time in college and then work in New York City and work in San Francisco, and I started a company.

[00:14:04] Mark Garza: Um, my own company, I was 23 and I moved to Europe, and I lived in Spain for a couple of years, and it was about experience and business and you know, like I said, I had parents who were like, you, you just write your ticket, create your reality, create your, you got one chance at this life. Yeah. They are no do-overs.

[00:14:23] Mark Garza: Mm hmm. And I was not setting out to start a nonprofit to run a nonprofit. Never. . But what I was trying to do was know that if you’re called, feel called to do something and you feel it in you, you know for me, whether you’re a spiritual person or very religious or you are just very hard driven by whatever motivates you.

[00:14:50] Mark Garza: For me, you know, it, it was this, this notion to. to feel that call to follow it, right? Like this is a purpose. Mm-hmm. . And people look and look and look for a purpose. And, um, it found me, I always say, and so to me, like I wanted to do the work that I was called to do on this earth serve others. Um, and it was not something I set out to do, but the power of.

[00:15:24] Mark Garza: Of the call to say, this is your purpose, and then figuring it all out. It was like a seize parted, and it was like, here’s the vision, here’s your path and we have to do this. And I also did not intend for it to be such a coping mechanism. It became very much a, like, you’re a hard worker. You know how to do this.

[00:15:47] Mark Garza: You can raise money. I thought I could raise money. I didn’t know you can do events, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, use all that stuff, but I buried my head so hard into it that I also didn’t give my health self time to grieve mm-hmm. And deal with what was happening. And a decade goes by and you still don’t deal with it.

[00:16:10] Mark Garza: You know, he was given, my dad was given eight months to live and he lived for about three and a half years after that. and so we were given extra time and cancer can at times give us that the opportunity to spend time with these people if we’ll take it. Yeah. Um, uh, you know, I think heart attacks and car accidents and stuff that happened very quick and there death is all terrible.

[00:16:30] Mark Garza: Yeah. Um, but I did not take that time and, uh, because I was using the actions as sort of a mechanism to cope mm-hmm. and. . And I think that’s important as well, is that we realize like are we, what are, what are the, what are the motivations for what we’re doing? Yeah. And how can we make sure they’re pure and they align with our goals and our needs.

[00:16:57] Mark Garza: And it took me 12 years, like I’m at that point now. Mm-hmm. 2022. Reflecting on that. So I know that’s a little bit off from sort of where we started with the question, but it, I was reminded in answering that, that like, this isn’t, , I wasn’t setting out to do it and I was kind of feeling the power and I did want to do, you know, sort of, I did wanna do God’s work and, and figure out what I needed to do, but I also, maybe anything in excess can be such a danger and I think excessively, I poured myself into it.

[00:17:27] Mark Garza: Yeah. Um, and, uh, we have to be careful with students listening or people are thinking that we have to really be careful. Like it’s one thing to be super driven and go all in. Um, but at what cost? At what cost For sure. So this has been incredible. Um, and we’re, yeah. I talk a lot. Sorry. No, it’s, it’s all so great.

[00:17:47] Mark Garza: Yeah. Flatwater Foundation is a nonprofit, started in Austin, Texas that was created, um, you know, our tagline now is therapy In the wake of cancer, we do fundraising events on the water because you gotta breakthrough the clutter of a city like Austin who has 10,000, uh, physical events going. , we use the water Tyler’s.

[00:18:06] Mark Garza: Damn that cancer was a paddle boarding event that raises, you know, over a million for us now. But it was just me on a couch being told my dad was gonna die thinking, oh no. And realizing that at the exact same time, I got a paddle board and I got on a paddle board and I was on Ladybird Lake before you could rent a paddle board, there was nobody paddle boarding with me.

[00:18:31] Mark Garza: I didn’t know that there was gonna be 600 paddle boards 10 years later on the on Ladybird Lake downtown, but it was just me. And this was me finding calm, peace and balance and then realizing I’m still missing something. And that’s this professional therapist. Yeah. Let’s use what I know helped me to get on the news and let’s go.

[00:18:51] Mark Garza: Paddleboard 21 miles in TW in 2010. and that became a spectacle by design that got us on the news and then the radio, and that was like, this is gonna work. I went to the Secretary of State’s office with my dad. I came up with a name based on the power of of water and healing and what we set out to do and our mission to cover the cost of the therapy for families that are touched by this diagnosis moving forward.

[00:19:23] Mark Garza: support from the community and from companies and individuals and sponsors is now going to make us able to take all of that mission and that goal. Not only do it tenfold, but also we’ve hired somebody to come in and own that process so that we can then say anybody that’s touched by cancer, we’ve been a secret little back pocket resource.

[00:19:51] Mark Garza: Within the cancer community, at the social worker level for so long, because not everybody, it was just me and then it was just, you know, me and Chelsea Hardy, who has ex helped us blow up. Yeah. Um, she’s our events, um, director and has, has run our ability to raise more money with this growth. We now have the opportunity to not be so private and to say, Let’s help everybody

[00:20:20] Mark Garza: And what that means is now that we can own the navigation, we’re no longer relying on all of our partners who we’ve given access to our software to help everybody find therapists. As of 2023, we’re gonna say, okay, none of that. Send everybody to us. We now have a senior program director, and that one person can now help people that do need us to pay for them.

[00:20:40] Mark Garza: Mm. , but also might be able to pay for themselves. But she can triage that. Yeah. And say, okay, well here are some resources. Cool. Which means that that 3000 families that we’ve helped and paid is gonna turn into tens of thousands over time. Yeah. So much quicker. Mm-hmm. . And that’s because of the support that we have from, from the community to be able to do something like hire a third person.

[00:21:01] Mark Garza: We’re three people. I think it’s . It’s incredible. I’m all we wanna be lean, lean, lean. Yeah. Everybody’s like, you’re only three people. . I was gonna say no. That’s pretty dang lean. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for making this happen and taking the time to talk to us and to our students. Um, I’m trying to think of anything else.

[00:21:19] Mark Garza: Yeah. I’d like say, yeah, so the Flatwater Foundation, um, the Flatwater Foundation, I, I started this, I’m the founder and executive director in, in 2010. And then we, a few years in realized. , I can’t do this. And we need somebody that’s absolutely incredible. And we put together this dream team. Chelsea Hardy, um, is our senior Vice President of Impact and Events, and now that’s what we call her.

[00:21:41] Mark Garza: But she’s basically just make it happen. Like, wow, we’re both make it happen. People, she’s an elite athlete in her past and just a champion for our, our mission and our cause, and one of the hardest workers you’ll ever meet. And so that skill alone sets people up for success. Just drive. , hard work. Work ethic.

[00:22:01] Mark Garza: Yeah. And then you bring in the expertise. And so we’re now three people. And we brought in Becky Morales, who I mentioned. Becky is a professor at Utn who has been a clinical director and also been a referral partner of ours where she was working at. She worked at Livestrong, she worked at the navigation center.

[00:22:18] Mark Garza: Very, I was gonna say, I know her name very, very well. She works, she works in the, but yeah. Yeah. She, she’s, uh, she is the one. Right. And so we set out to build a dream team. I think of. . If a company we’re in a company and you want to invest in a company, you wanna know who are the people in the company. Yeah.

[00:22:34] Mark Garza: We want people to invest in our mission via donations. And so we’re trying to put together the dream team. And that’s not something I generally like go out and speak about or talk about, but I want to do more of that, especially as the board when I move to the board as a volunteer. Um, we’re in the process of hiring our next ED and that person is going to be of that same caliber because we want people to understand that A, we are sustain.

[00:22:57] Mark Garza: we’re investing now in people, very few people with very powerful impact. Yeah. Um, and we hold our people to a very high standard, but we really don’t have to cuz they hold themselves to such a high standard. So I think the organization is, is, is primed to be quite successful. Um, . And by the time this podcast comes out, I hope, you know, we have established our, our, our, our next leader.

[00:23:23] Mark Garza: Yeah. Um, but I will still continue to be a leader along with our incredible board of directors that we continue to, to grow. And, um, I just didn’t want to the, this conversation to end without celebrating the people that make it happen, because it isn’t me. I started this and I do own that and I’m very proud of it, but it isn’t me.

[00:23:40] Mark Garza: Um, I am not Flatwater Foundation. Mm-hmm. , it is the hundred, hundred, hundred 50, eventually 300 therapists in our network. and it is all the cancer centers and people doing great work to help families that know about Flatwater, that send them our way. That is Flatwater found. We call the Flatwater family.

[00:23:57] Mark Garza: Mm-hmm. . Um, so it was, it’s just important for me to lay, lay that out there. I’m, I’ve been, I’ve been captaining this ship and I built it, but there are people smarter than me that we’re bringing on to make. It’s super exciting. Thank you so much. Truly, truly, thank you for coming on and doing this.

[00:24:17] Eugenio Sobrevilla: Thank you, Mark Garza for your time and expertise. If you have questions about today’s episode or ideas for a future episode, Please give us an email at Lyft Strong Cancer Institutes DMed tex.edu. You can also follow our Guest Flatwater Foundation on Twitter at Flatwater Helps on Facebook Flatwater Foundation.

[00:24:36] Eugenio Sobrevilla: And also, if you have questions about the Lyft Strong Cancer Institute, please visit DMed doex edu. This is Reporting for Cancer Uncovered. Thank you for listening and learning with us.