Time is a funny thing. They say life is like a roll of toilet paper, the less you have, the faster it goes, and man, if that isn’t the truth. This year has blown by faster than any year I’ve ever lived. Didn’t I just take the Christmas tree down? I literally have a box of Christmas stuff in the dining room that never made it to the attic after my diagnosis, and at this point, there is no reason to move it. My Chromecast is already pushing Mariah Carey’s Christmas special on me like we’re in the home stretch of the holiday season. At this rate, we’ll have the tree back up before I figure out where October went.

Has it been the cancer journey that made time feel this way? I am simultaneously crawling and sprinting, each day feeling like a week while the months disappear in a blink. Or maybe it’s just what getting older feels like, watching the seasons blur together like highway markers when you’re driving too fast to read the signs. Either way, here we are, hurtling toward another year’s end, and I’m still trying to catch the breath knocked out of me from the last one. I wonder how God views time, since it’s just a construct we’ve created. Time has been so paradoxical to me, and physics is one of my favorite things to learn about. 

The thing about time moving this fast is that it forces you to pay attention to the moments that matter. When you realize how quickly that TP roll is spinning down, you start noticing things like the way a sunrise looks after a good night’s sleep, the sound of your babies laughing in the next room, and the small victories that used to pass unnoticed. Thankfully, I’ve slowed down enough to see what’s passing by. So yeah, go ahead and bring Mariah in for a warm-up. Christmas lights will be on this house before Thanksgiving. 

My recovery from the mastectomy started one month ago this past weekend. Things are going well. I have been able to change my shirt unassisted for a couple of weeks now and my sister in law, Jessica, took my last surgical drain out just this past Thursday, freeing me from more plastic hanging off my person. I started my home PT exercises this past weekend and that’s rough, but I will hopefully be able to scratch my back again soon.  

After two trips to Dallas last week, I was greenlit for surgery this Thursday (9/18) to have my ostomy reversed, eliminating the third biggest curveball of 2025 (and more plastic!) from my life.

Thank. You. Jesus.

The DaVinci robot surgical rooms are highly sought after and hard to book on short notice without bumping a less critical case. I spent hours on the phone pleading to anyone who would listen that I really want to have this reversed before I have to start chemo again, leaving my body less able to heal from a reversal. My original surgeon was too booked up to fit me in, but his partner made an opening for me and I feel very confident in him after meeting him last week. 

I am headed back to Dallas on Wednesday evening and for the first time in 10 months, am excited about it. They say I will be in the hospital recovering for two to four days, so anyone who wants to talk, text, or Marco Polo while I’m stuck in a hospital bed, I’d love to hear from you.

I had an appointment today to prepare everything for the start of radiation and got my first tattoo! Three tiny dots that help with alignment so that I am in the same position for every blast of X-rays, making sure to miss my heart and lungs as much as possible. This will start just one week into recovery from Thursday’s surgery. 

It’s another couple of big weeks in the Buice household. 

Please pray that my surgery is a 100% success.