Hi Leycester,

Sorry to hear your news.  I was also confirmed stage 4 (metastatic) breast cancer in January.

I realise it sounds very much like a cop-out but the truth is no-one can tell you how long you'll have.  Not least because treatments are improving all the time.  However, on top of that we are all so different with different types of cancer that respond differently to the various drugs.  I haven't even bothered asking my oncologist what he thinks because I realise he'll have no idea.

What other treatment you will be on depends very much on your type of breast cancer.  I am on Herceptin and Perjeta as mine is HER2+ve.  I'm also on Tamoxifen because it is ER+ve.  Due to finding more cancer and being restaged as stage 4 they've put me back on chemo to try and kill what is there, but they are hoping to be able to safely take a break after 3 or 4 cycles to do surgery and remove my ovaries.  That should also help slow the cancer growth as it will seriously reduce my body's oestrogen procution.  Radiotherapy is looking unlikely for me now as it would be a huge undertaking apparently but might be back on the cards if I have a good response to this chemo.

Once you're on treatment how long you have depends how well those treatments slow the growth, but there is also the element of chance as to where the cancer decides to grow.  Obviously some organs in your body you can still go on longer with them being cancerous than you can with other organs.

I believe the statistics (which are obviously already out of date) generally suggest a few years, but there are many women out there now that have been stage 4 breast cancer for 10, even 15 years.  Mine is proving to be very aggressive and I can actually feel that it is still growing despite this chemo (albeit I've only had one round of this one so far) but who knows, maybe it will turn a corner and between surgery and the Herceptin I may go into remission for a good while.  Who knows?

All I can say is try to lose the fear.  It is just robbing you of pleaure.  I am living every day.  I still work, albeit I'm off a lot just now due to this chemo.  Not everyone chooses to keep working, not everyone has a choice either, but I like keeping that normality and the social aspect of it.

Please feel free to add me as a friend if you want to chat, since we're very much in the same boat.

LJxx