had it and have it.

I had cancer.  I beat it.  I have it.  Because I don't know how to live without it.  Not yet, anyway.

That's the thing about being a new cancer survivor.  Like being a new cancer patient, it's new.  I didn't know then how to deal with the people around me asking questions, and trying to help.  I don't know now how to deal with them either, how happy they are, how ready to forget it all, because they don't have as much to remember.

It's not just about the people.  In fact, very little of this survivor stuff is about how to deal with loved ones.  It's more about myself.

I want to forget, because the stuff is horrific to me.  I think about it, and I cry.  Sometimes, I can't stop crying.  It's too much.  And it's not that I don't have hope, or that I don't have God, because I have both in tremendous measure.  But when you live on several months of stress hormones and vomiting, you're going to have a little post-trauamtic stress going.

I also want to remember.  Because I am fully and joyfully convinced that there are people in my future who need me to remember.  There are girls who need me to know that when they come to me, when God sends them, my heart should be strong and broken, and above words like, "You're gonna be fine!  Just trust in the Lord."  Those words are good and true, but so hollow to the ears of a new diagnosis.  It's possible that those girls will need my tears.  I don't want to leave those back here, when I need them ahead.

So there's a balance.  A strength to be found.  Gradually, I guess, my stress will come back to baseline.  Already, as I dig into scripture, He gives me truth--words that help me to bind my cancer experience to my life now in a way that makes sense, and builds my hope for the future.

My biggest hope is that some day I can say simply: I had cancer.  I beat it.