anyone ER and HER@?

I've mentioned my sister's case on this message board before...she was diagnosed last Aug. with stage 1V (mets to liver, bones and now brain). We had a family conference with doctors yesterday. Dx saying that my sister is Estr. Reseptive AND her2 positive, which apparently is rare. We forgot to ask him what this mean for further treatment and whether this can account for her rapid growing cancer. Has anyone heard of this?
She had WBR over three weeks ago and has been in hospital for the last two and half weeks. She is too weak for chemo at this time, but we are praying that her white blood cell count will improve so that she can have some chemo (Taxol and Herceptin). Her liver, which was functioning normally after last chemo, is in a terrible state. She had two blood transfusions, which seemed to have given her more energy. We are happy about that.
I finally found out why doctors didn't put her on Herceptin for maintance after her initial chemo..it's not protocol in Canada. They treat with Adrimycin first and if that doesn't work they turn to Herceptin. Doctor said that if he had it his way, Herceptin would be first line of defense. I mentioned Gammaknife to him, but he said that it's not generally done for met. b/c. Thanks to this site, I know differently. He said that if she managed to get through chemo, he'll do another MRI and talk about that as an option later.
We are scared...she still has the desire to fight and we hope that she will get through this unbelievable battle. Please say a prayer for my sister.

My limited understanding is that this situation -testing positive for hormone receptivity AND overexpression of Her2Neu - happens in about 7% of breast cancer cases. I am one of them. One thing it does mean is that the patient may be able to take both Herceptin and Tamoxifen, which I am doing right now. I have not metastisized nor did I have any node involvement (another stunner for the docs)BUT I am in the heap of folks who are most likely to re-offend. That is why I am in a clinical trial right now to measure what happens when you give Herceptin BEFORE mets. I am sorry about your situation. Keep hoping!

Hi:

Being er/pr postive reflects where the cancer is feed/energized from and the pr is how aggressive/strong/able to come back.
The HER2 + reflects the cancers type which I amnot sure about

My Lori is er/pr+ and her2++
In the last 17 months she has experienced bc with met to bones( hips, shoulders, spine and ribs). Now into the large arm and leg bones.
She has has 2 reoccurances of the BC and proggression of the bone mets.
Herceptin alone failed while the herceptin, taxol and carboplatin worked the 1st time and tamoxofin just failed after almost 7 months.
phil s-r

Phil,
Last I hear Lori was dx w/mets to the Brain in March. How is the fight going? What treatment is she on now?

Janelle