Years ago, our kids both swam on the Park Forest Swim Team. At one summer morning practice, I was sitting by the pool talking to a friend when our elementary school-aged son, James, came over to tell me his story of something that happened. When he left, my friend, an educational psychologist, said, “He’s an external processor.”
What I’ve learned since then is that I am partly an external processor as well. Some of the ways I do that are by talking and writing, including writing these columns. I’ve also learned that there are times when I prefer to process things internally. Although in the end, I do often still process externally with my husband, John, just to be done.
John, on the other hand, is mostly an internal processor. So, when he was diagnosed with a rare and highly curable form of throat cancer on July 28, I tried my best to follow his lead and not broadly process externally. Because he is an internal processor, very private, and only wants to share if he sees a positive outcome as the result, his lead was not to share with others until he knew more about where this was headed. I am abundantly grateful to say that it headed in a positive direction. John is now cancer-free, requires no radiation or chemo treatments, and continues to heal!
But to become cancer-free, he had three surgeries, one almost ten hours long, one week in the hospital and lots of healing. And during his surgery and early stage of recovery, John could not speak very much because he had a temporary trach, his throat was very swollen, and because he needed to use his energy for coping with his daily realities and healing.
During this time, my external processing needs were partially met through journaling but mostly through talking with our children who generously came to be with us during John’s hospitalization and his first couple weeks at home. I am abundantly grateful again!
Two weeks ago, John publicly shared his story in his www.statecollege.com column so I can now externally process here myself with you. I once read that it takes telling our stories 72 times to heal. This means you’ll probably be hearing more of my tellings of John’s cancer story and how I experienced it.
As a start, one of the things I learned in a deeper way is we all have trials in our lives. John’s cancer is one of ours, no more or less important than any of yours. And with my work around grief and loss, I’m keenly aware that not everyone’s cancer journeys have the outcome John’s had.
So, in this month dedicated to gratitude, it is incredibly easy for me to be abundantly grateful. However, I recognize that it isn’t that easy for many of you. If it isn’t, I hope you find ways to be compassionate with all the parts of yourself and look for ways to process your stories.
