You have many options to manage this disease.
I became stage 4 in Jan. 07 after being stage 2 in 03. I've been on only Herceptin since my disease advanced and NED since Oct 08, thus far a little over 3 years. The cancer was treated with local procedures, and these are options that most oncologist never mention and that many doctors disagree with.
The cancer spread to my lung and brain. I had a lung wedge resection in 07 and the cancer recurred there a year later. I then had radiofrequency ablation, or RFA, which burned the recurrence (cryoablation, as well as chemoembolization is also used to treat liver nodules).
In the same year, a brain met was discovered (I had no symptoms, but after my cancer became stage 4 my onc agreed to give me an annual brain MRI, and on the second scan, 16 months after the first, showed a nodule in my left frontal lobe). The nodule was treated with surgery (a craniotomy) followed 6 weeks later with 5 dosages of targeted radiation to the tumor bed (IMRT).
The lung nodule was HER2+ on biopsy before the surgery but my brain nodule was HER2-.
If you want more information about local procedures here's a link to a video from a conference I attended in October that was given my the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network at Johns Hopkins. See Dr. Hirose's presentation. That presentation, as well as all the others, was excellent and very informative.
http://mbcn.org/special-events/categ...presentations/
You have a lot of options. Stay strong. Praying for you.
Joan