Hi jelly tot, and welcome to the place none of us want to be.
The only thing I'd add to all the great advice you've been given already is to ask what type your BC is. You may well know this from your primary BC diagnosis, and it is most likely to be the same, but it might not have meant so much to you with a primary as you tend to get on with the treatment that you are basically told to have and tend not to question anything. After all we all hope that's our only brush with BC. Once you get a diagnosis of secondaries i have found it important to know exactly whether my BC is hormone positive and/or HER2 positive as this will impact the treatments that are available to you. From what you have written it sounds like you are HER2 negative (as you haven't said that you have had Herceptin) but you've not said if you have been on a hormone treatment since your primary BC treatment. Although your oncologist will put you on the best treatment for your type of BC I have found it helps if you are researching future treatments or reading newspaper articles about new treatments whether they are appropriate for your type of BC. You will inevitably get well meaning friends and family saying they have read such and such and why aren't you on it, when in fact it's not right for your type of BC.
The other thing is to ask when you would next have a scan - which they will do at some point after you start a new treatment to check how you are responding, normally every 3-4 cycles of whatever drug/chemo etc you are on initially.
Over the 9 or so years I've had secondaries (bone initially then 5 years later liver as well) this forum has been a lifeline. You are connecting, and making friends, with real ladies going through the same things as you are who understand completely the fear, the shock and also help with all sorts of information especially things like what side effects you can expect from which treatment you are on and what helped them with them. I feel like I'm tapping into the knowledge of many oncologists as we all go to different hospitals around the country and share what our own oncologists say to us, especially when we start a new treatment. I have learnt from here recently that I don't necessarily need steroids with my current chemo, however I have been prescribed them at my local hospital. A lady on the same regime as me who is at a leading cancer hospital has told me you don't need them, unless you have really bad side effects from the chemo, which I don't, so I now tell the chemo nurses not to give them to me - which helps with the normal lack of sleep that steroids give you. So I've managed to bypass one of the side effects just by learning about things on here.
Sorry, I've rambled on a bit! Please ask any questions that might pop up before your appointment and also do come back afterwards if you have any more, one of us is bound to be able to help.
Nicky x
