How do you deal with "what do we do now?"

Thank you thank you thank you ladies for your replies!  It confirmed much of what I thought.  I didn't know about how hard it is on the skin though and will ask about that....my oncologist and the rad onc said that the radiation should zap it all but we'll see. To answer your question Flalady, I am brca (-)...and I saw that too...that PARP inhibitors are more for brca (+).  My oncologist did tell me I needed to shift my thinking more from having IBC to being TN.. I did hear that too and of course HATE IT!!  Thanks for your thoughts on the second opinion....my oncologist has been very open to doing whatever I want and I asked her to call her contacts so she has called Seattle, MD Anderson (very unhelpful) and UCLA where she was a fellow.  So without me going there in person, she has found out info from those places and I feel comfortable with that so we'll see.  You are the second person I have seen on the forum that has done the gemzar/carbo combo so I will ask about that.  Xeloda is the same class of drugs as gemzar but I have only seen through literature Xeloda used in combo with something so I need to ask about that.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for all your info.  Prayers for you both!!

Just an update to this post....I had a few pages of questions for the Dr after reading your posts and doing research.  Spent an hour with the oncologist this week and here's what she said: Basically, as FLAlady said....its pretty individualized as to how to proceed.  There are no protocols or research for me having residual cancer.  Dr Gralow from Seattle recommended NO MORE chemo but IF we wanted to, to do avastin and a taxene. 4 other Dr's my Dr consulted have all different opinions but ALL of them would treat me with SOMETHING.  So my Dr agrees Xeloda is out of the question (unless we just use it with radiation).  Parp inhibitors are being studied for Stage 4 only so that's not an option, and, according to my Dr the studies are widening to ALL TN including BRCA (-) but they won't be out of study for another 2-3 years.  So she is thinking of gemzar/carboplat but she is worried the gemzar may really hit my skin during radiation so she is looking at carboplat/taxene.  She is not a huge avastin fan because the use of chemo alone vs avastin plus chemo is not that significant, and again, used for stage 4.  Sooooo we are in for a fight with the insurance company....to see what they will approve.  I asked my husband, "at what point do we just stop and rely on faith and the studies that say no chemo is recommended." But he reminded me that God gave us Dr's and medicine and I will add, even insurance companies that may deny our plan---and that will be our answer.