Where to begin.....

So...about the Duke appointment....I feel like I am on information overload...the doctors spent about 2-3 hours talking with me about EVERYTHING...some promising ....some not so promising... Mike and I actually went up last night and my parents watched our babies so that we could be sure we were there this morning and knew where we were going...so we got to Duke this morning and they called me right in and this Fellow Doctor...studying under the doctor I was going to see came in and I gave him "the story"...cried a bit just rehashing it all...Told him I still believe that God can give me a miracle...and he said "I do not want you to give up on hope and/or your faith....but at the same time we need to be realistic" He did not say this in a negative light at all...he and the Doctor I saw who is suppose to be 1 of the top 5 leading Doctors in Breast Oncology in the nation were very positive and realistic at the same time...So they were just great!!!!!!!!! They were very compassionate saying "sorry you have this bad disease:....Here is kind of the downlow...The Duke Doctor said absolutely no surgery right now and he is not sure research shows enough management to take them off...who knows that may change...I thought that I had a brain scan..apparently not and he said that he was going to order one since I have the Her2 pos. and inflammatory cancer which is aggressive and can sometimes go to your brain :(...but we shall see. What is nice is he has spoken with my Doctor here in the past and he is going to send an order here for my doctor's office to have that ordered to cut down on travel...he also wants me to have 2 more big treatments(they will all be here) before I see him again to see if there is any significant change in my breast. I will go back to him on Dec 2 ..at this time he wants to biopsy my liver..he most likely thinks it is the cancer but he says there is something about knowing 100%...and if it's not cancer ...then they will have to find out what is on there...or maybe they will go in and God may have removed it :)!!!!! I asked about the spots on my lungs and he said they were smaller..apparently the 4 tumors on my liver are not? I just said you know I wanna see my kids graduate and get married...tears...tears...he said he wants that too and that he would even just get it to where maybe it is just something chronic that I have to deal with but still have a quality of life at the same time!!!! He said that when I come back in Dec. that if there is not significant change that he has many good doctors at Duke who are using new drugs in clinical trials...one is for inflammatory breast cancer which is what I have and this doctor is pretty passionate about it..so we shall see....When I was talking with the fellow doctor we were talking about prognosis stuff and for Stage 4, metastatic, inflammatory breast cancer-what I have...where do I lie between the 1-5 years they give you...or do I lie in making it 15 years...well I don't know ...and he wasn't being negative...just realistic..b/c everyone is different and ULTIMATELY my God is in charge of all this!!!! I did tell the fellow Doctor that I just want the pill to take to make it all go away and he got serious and said "And I would love to do that for you"....Who knows...things come out all the time ..they did try and feel my liver and said they couldn't ...told them no pain...they said that was good ..I guess b/c it is not inflamed...or maybe the tumors are gone :) On another positive note...my doctor here did a breast exam yesterday and could still feel the lump and the mass of tumors but were not defined as before...which he said was good ...baby steps are better than no steps! Also, the doctors at Duke said that there is still heaviness in my breast but since it seems the chemo is doing something positive...this is the direction we are going in!!!Chemo went good yesterday...I actually slept the entire time...they did give me something different this time since I had such bad sickness last time...a preventative for the nausea that I will take for the next few days to help the nausea not be so bad..I guess! I have to tell you that when we first saw this young fellow doctor ...he said ...well it looks like you have already been taking chemo(I had a scarf on my bald head)...and I said...yes...and he says I have seen many women with the bald head and it is not that pretty but I must say I am liking it on you...he said your pretty hot doing the whole pirate looking thing...then he says I hope that wasn't inappropriate as he looked Mike! HAHA!!!Also, when I was leaving in the big line...the lady in front of me said how are you doing and I said ok...I said how are you...said she was doing good for 2 years...I said I was just diagnosed about a month ago and of course I started crying saying what I always say..I have two babies at home...a few other women joined around and said "Oh honey you will make it then...you have to be positive...you've got an army behind you!!!" I said ...I have Stage 4,metastatic, inflammatory breast cancer ...forgetting that I am in the doctors office who treats metastatic disease and the women just started spouting off...so do I ...it's here and here and it's been 2 years or this or that....it was encouraging!So that was my day...I am tired and overloaded and praying that in all of this that my Heavenly Father is being glorified b/c he is the GREATEST PHYSICIAN and HIS plan is much bigger than anyone else's! He is still got it all under control and will take me to where HE wants me to be ...since it's all about HIM anyways!!! Catherine