Waiting For My Return

There are things I shouldn't say out loud.  I'm not superstitious but I've lived long enough to know that sometimes our thoughts are just a GPS for the next disaster in our lives.   Chaos follows like a heat seeking missile.
So.  As you know, I have breast cancer.  Or I had breast cancer.  I'm not sure yet as I am still under the care of three doctors: my oncologist who handled the chemical annihilation of my tumor, or at least made it retreat, my surgeon who physically evicted the shrunken remains, and then again a week later scooped out more questionable tissue.  And then again, a third time had to do some major housekeeping when a stubborn staph infection not only made me sick enough for a five day hospital stay, it dug in, multiplied and a month later I presented with an inflamed and oozy boob.  The last surgery reduced the volume of tissue in my breast by at least half and has taken more than two months to heal.  But I'm glad for the procedure which eliminated my infection.
And then there is my radiologist whose silent, invisible beams fried any microscopic cells of tumor and gave my left boob a nice Tahiti-like tan.  All my doctors are women.  Elegant, super-smart, beautiful women.  They leave me in awe.  I'm almost grateful for the whole cancer experience just so I can say that I know them.  Almost.
So I can't be sure if I can be considered a survivor yet or not.  It might be too early to claim such a victory though I have never thought this cancer would kill me.  I thought that chemo might .. 
Anyway, now the chemo is behind me, the surgeries are done, the radiation complete and as soon as my incision from my last surgery completely healed, I guess that it's a logical assumption that I am done.  Cancer free.  A survivor.
My hair has grown back in as curly as a toddler's.  The hair on the rest of me has returned as well, in some places (like my chin) with a vengeance.  Perhaps it's been encouraged by my estrogen blockers which I started taking as an extra step in preventing my cancer's recurrence.  The toxic effect of chemo still shows in my sickly, gray and peeling toe nails.  But the tiniest half moon of healthy pink tissue promises new nails will be normal and should arrive just in time for barefoot weather.
I still feel fatigue and wonder if it is a permanent part of my world.  I still feel confused at times and unable to focus on tasks.  The first time I tried (unsuccessfully) to drive I was overcome with how much of my brain was required to just steer and push the gas pedal.
I used to be creative and loved to paint, thinking someday (like about now), I'd be making paintings that others would love and buy and I could continue my quiet little life and finance my poultry obsession here on the dirt road. 
I used to wake at dawn, anxious to get outside to see what the night visitors had left me:  little shorthand notes in raccoon  paw and rabbit feet and punctuated with exclamation points drug by the armadillo's tail.
I used to love watching the sun come up at watermelon hill.  But that's closed to me now as poacher's repeated intrusion made the owner string up a wire gap with a "no trespassing" sign.  It doesn't matter.  I no longer have the inclination to go there, at dawn or any other time of day.
It's as though a part of me (and a large part at that) has just had the pilot light go out.   I've tried not to think of it too much but considering where I am calendar-wise in my treatment, it's starting to concern me.  Those closest to me say I am expecting too much.   Am I?  Or have those parts of me who loved the morning sun and walks in the woods and seeing where a smear of paint would eventually carry me died ... like my toenails?  
I get urges to paint but then I talk myself out of it.  Can I tell you a secret?  What if ... what if I start to paint and actually show some promise .. and start to do well and then my cancer comes back?   What if my cancer comes back and takes it all away.   Or what if whatever talent I used to have fell away with my hair .. and my eyebrows .. and my eyelashes?  Maybe it's just easier and safer and wiser to keep that box closed. 
But if I do not create or do not find joy in found feathers ... if I am not in awe of every change of every season or aware, at a cellular level, of the beauty just outside my door .. who am I?
I no longer look like myself.  Yes, I have hair and eyelashes and eyebrows.  But this involuntary makeover has left me older, worn and weary.   Being ungrateful makes me feel guilty so I play up my pride in my new curly locks and I'm learning to use eyeliner to plump up my thin eyelashes.  
I tell everyone how much better I feel ... and I do.  Chemo makes you sick as a dog, so yes, I do feel better.  But ... not like me.  I refuse to be depressed about it.  Most days.  
I don't know what is more frightening:  having my cancer recur with increased vim and vigor or being "cured" and still never feeling like myself.  In my 54 years, I've adapted so many times to so many new situations and circumstances.  I've picked myself up and brushed myself off more times than I care to count. 
Would it be so wrong then to just lie here, in the dirt, for a little while?
I wonder if the raccoons and rabbits will mind or if the armadillo will drag his tail across my face as I lie here ... and wait for my return.