Two years since mastectomy

Not sure what the flow of this post is going to be like.  I'm a little bit rusty.  

Every morning I wake up and smile at my loved ones.  I am having a ridiculously good time living (despite these prolonged winter conditions--Mother Nature missed the memo that tomorrow is the first day of Spring!)  It blows my mind to think about where I was two years ago at this time--bald and emptying drainage tubes multiple times daily.  I was revising my pain scale so that I could get more appropriate pain management.  And check out this post from March 2011 that truly exemplifies my optimistic personality.  I was experiencing the worst kinds of pain and having unidentified objects fall out of my body, but I somehow managed to crack jokes and be upbeat.  

When you talk about it in terms of attitude, not much has changed.  I am the same in these most important ways.  I am grateful for that.

Physical recovery has been such a long process.  The fatigue lingered with me for such a long time.  I can retrospectively estimate that it wasn't until January 2012 before I had sufficient vigor to participate in all of my old hobbies.  I often wonder if I continue to gain more energy, or if I have reached my peak.  I'll reflect again in a few more years to determine if the increasing trend is continuous or plateaus at some point.  

This is not nor will ever be a food blog, but today I am going to celebrate my recovery with pictures of a pie.  Not just any pie, but a key lime pie.  My college friends and I would bake this pie in the wee hours of the morning when normal college students were ordering pizza.  I used to make this pie all the time.  I had not made this pie since before cancer.  My evidence for this is that my stash of sweetened condensed milk, purchased and stored exclusively for the purposes of this pie, expired in 2011.  

Last week, I made my key lime pie.

sweetened condensed milk is gradually added to egg yolks.  Then add lime juice, water, and food coloring (if desired, and it's always desired when you live with preschoolers.)

Making this pie caused me to reflect on all of my key lime pie memories:  pie on Iowa Avenue, pie on Bracken Place, pie on Spaight Street.  And now, pie on B_____ St.  

have a special little helper squeeze the lime juice.  makes all the difference.

pour the filling into a crust that you've prepared (I like a graham cracker crust for my key lime pie). Bake until halfway done, then top with meringue.

look at that pie!  and the clever foreshadowing of the green pie pan, suggestive of the filling! I could totally start a food blog!

except that I forgot to take a picture of the sliced pie until it looked like this. I could never start a food blog!

I've decided that I'm glad I don't have a cancer+key lime pie memory.  Cancer was, you know, that stuff that happened to me a couple of years ago.  Unlike cancer, key lime pie has staying power in my life.   Hopefully my cancer is over forever.  Hopefully you can expect a lot more key lime pie posts (figuratively speaking, that is).