Liver mets

Hi Ladies, am gutted to be back here and using this forum again but I also know that the friends I made in the Facebook chemo group from here the first time round were invaluable, we were all so supportive of each other through the ups and downs, it’s amazing how close you can become to ladies you’ve never even met. I was diagnosed June 2015, bilateral, Stage 2 but the cancer was so small in the main tumour that they couldn’t test it properly. So I had double mx with recon then 6 x FEC-T. I got married two months ago, came back from honeymoon thinking I had some tummy bug but an ultrasound showed two lessions on the liver which turned out to be my cancer back. They can now confirm I’m HER2 + (So should have already previously had herceptin but didnt) My onc seems quite pleased Im HER2+?? I start perjeta, herceptin and taxol next week. Just wondering what to expect, I know everyone’s different but are SEs the same on chemo as before or do they come back worse or quicker as you body remembers what it is? Are there SEs to perjeta and herceptin combo that I will be on long term, can you carry on going to work etc, live a relatively 'normal life? It does seem to have some quite positive results looking online. Any ladies out there on same combo? X

Hi and welcome from one Nicky to another!

Sorry you have had to come back to the forum but as you know it is a great place for support and information - even more so with secondaries than primary IMO.

I have had bone mets since 2008 and also liver mets since 2013. My SBC is a bit odd as it seems to change the HER2 receptor status but in 2013 when I had a liver biopsy done I was shown to be HER2+. I was already on Capecitabine so continued on that until 2014 when my liver mets were shown on a CT scan to have slightly increased. I then started the combo that you are going to be on. I had 6 cycles with the chemo included, although you can have up to 8 cycles, then continued on H and P.  The chemo was as chemo us, no different to ha paving it for secondaries than primary from what I could tell. In fact I got all my info about what to expect from the treatment/chemo part of the main forum as there were more ladies on taxol for primaries than secondaries. I didn’t experience much in the way of SEs from the H and P elements other than runny nose and watering eyes which seem quite familiar to anyone having Herceptin. There is a thread on the other part of this secondary BC part of the forum, confusingly also called ‘Living with Sevondary Breat Cancer’ like the main heading, which is called ‘Pertuzamab’ the medical name for Perjeta. It hasn’t been updated for a while do I have bumped it up but I’m sure at least one of the ladies still in this combo will be able to help with any of your questions.

In my case the H and P combo seemed to hold things at bay for about 18 months but my SBC is playing silly games again with the HER2 status so things progressed and I’m now on a different chemo eribulin. 

Nicky x