[chrisy]

Skip,
I don't know if you checked out my bio, but my mets diagnosis was in my liver (only) even though it was extensive. For some reason the liver is on of the places her2+ likes to go, so it is fairly common to have that be the first/only site. You do want to be sure what you're dealing with, so it's good she's had an MRI - you might check out a bone scan just for a baseline if she has not had that. But so far, it looks like she's only dealing with liver mets - and the liver is the one organ in the body that can regenerate.

I didn't have taxotere, I had taxol/carboplatin/herceptin. So I can't comment on the side effects. I do remember the herceptin loading dose also can cause problems. Make sure her doctor or nurse is aware of the symptoms, there may be something they can do to mitigate. Or they might get better on their own.

Skip, the beginning of chemo was really hard for me. Not so much physically as much as complete fear and dismay that this could be happening to me. But treatments can be very effective, and Her2+ cancer generally responds very well to the taxanes. You just have to view the chemo as your friend - strong medicine - and have faith it will work.

One tip on the taxotere, it can cause damage to the nailbeds so everyone getting that at my clinic put bags of frozen peas on their fingers and toes during the taxotere infusion. It sounds goofy, but I actually saw a study confirming this does help (the study used something more controlled than frozen veggies, but the point was, it was cold!) One lady had a wonderful spouse who came with her and rubbed her feet afterwards - everyone was quite jealous.

Hope she feels better soon. Remember, however bad she feels, the stupid cancer cells feel even worse!