Hi Tilly,
About whether to go on a holiday now, or to leave it and start treatment straight away, first I would ask my oncologist about that. I would also make sure I see the oncologist asap, not just surgeons, before deciding on what to do re treatment and also holiday.
Psychologically, a key point to consider is whether you would actually enjoy your holiday now, or whether you would be better to postpone it and get your money back through your travel insurance. I would ask you to also consider whether you would still choose to go on the holiday now not in a year's time if you knew for sure that this was only a hiccough, and that you would definitely be much better in a year's time, and could count of having another ten years at least to live. I would guess that you are making this choice out of the belief that you will die soon, when there may well be a very good chance that you actually have a year of treatment and then quite a while left to live.
I do feel for you, and your dilemma: I had a two week wedding anniversary holiday in Tasmania booked for the day my chemo started, and I simply followed the oncologist's advice about when to start treatment. I felt terribly sad giving up our lovely holiday, but it seemed to me that going on the holiday would (for me) have been going with the hypothesis that I would die quite soon of this breast cancer. Choosing to start treatment was choosing to believe I would survive it and (probably) have a good long life.
Also, while it must be terribly scary having extensive liver metastases, there really is reason to hope for a turnaround, particularly if you are HER2.pos. I have a dear friend who was clear of cancer in July last year, had a dozen golfball sized tumors in her liver and lungs and possibly one in her bones, by the end of the year. She is HER2pos and ERpos. Arlene put her straight onto Herceptin and Paclitaxel and also hormone treatment. After 3months, the biggest one was 70% smaller, after 6months, they were not growing or shrinking, after 9months, they had all vanished except for one half-centimetre one in her lungs, which is expected to vanish too. She was in the same place you are now: confused, sad, preparing to die soon. Now she is giving herself time to heal and planning what she will do next year. And another woman in the oncology ward had metastatic liver cancer plus primary breast cancer on first diagnosis 7 years ago, which all vanished with chemotherapy last time. She was clear for about 6 years and then the lump in her breast came back. It all shrank a lot with herceptin and chemo, and she has now had surgery and is looking good. She said the oncologist just admitted to her that when she first saw her with metastatic cancer as well as primary, she did not expect her to last out the year. Now 7years later, she has had a hiccough and will have her treatment and contine to make the most of her life.
Do you know what sort of cancer you had from last time, ie if it is HER2pos or neg, ERpos or neg, PRpos or neg? Because it will affect the treatment they give you and the prognosis. Treatments have got so much better since you were first diagnosed, new techniques are transforming the course of the disease, which is now so often a chronic illness not a death sentence. But then there are even cures, even with extensive metastatic disease. The liver is one of the best sites to get it because it heals quickly as well as growing quickly.
I hope you will find a way to accommodate this fear and horror and sadness, and to let hope and patience and joy back in. This is such a challenge, so hard, but I am sure you will get there, I wish you all the best
Jessica.
