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Hi,
Don't lose hope yet. Sounds like there is still lots for you to do. I was told surgery to the liver is not a good idea. There are cancer cells in your liver so even if you take at the larger tumors you'll get more cancer and have less liver to function with.
Herceptin works even better in combination with other drugs (I was told by my oncologists in USA at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston) than all by itself. Now that you are stage 4 you will see will learn that there are a number of combos for you to try.
I started with a nice easy combo. that did not destroy my life at all, It was Herceptin plus Navelbine weekly. No hair loss, just lowered white coutns, we lowered dose of navelbine 20% and then I was fine. Within months, no more liver met and much much lower tumor markers. I did this for a year, could have stopped sooner but we decided to go for a year. Now I am on maintenance herceptin every 3 weeks and watching to see.
I would make sure you remind your doctors you want some quality of life. Unless the liver mets are making you so sick right now, say you are planning to be around a long time and don't want to destroy your body and use up all your options right away thank you very much!
You can move on to the big gun drugs when/if you need then.
Hang in there. You will see lots of good stories about herceptin here.
Love,
Isabelle
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