Herceptin only for my mom? Help needed!

Hi there, I am here for my beloved mom. English is not my native language so hopefully I can express myself clearly.

In Jan this year in my home country, my mom was diagnosed with stage1A breast cancer(ER-, PR-, HER2+), the tumors were found in her left breast sizing 1.5×1 cm and 0.2×0.2 cm. Back then I was 6 months pregnant so my mom decided she was not going to tell me about it. She went through left mastectomy and waited about one week and then told me everything. I still remember the day my mom told me about the cancer, it was snowing and I was so heartbroken. In Feb., my mom started chemo (and I couldn’t be with her) AC->T, and the chemo (6 cycles) finished end of May, the same date as my son was born. They did a FISH test and knew it is HER2+, but since my mom was so down both physically and psychologically so she decided not to do Herceptin. (Her doctor didn’t suggest her to do that either) Besides, she wanted to come here as soon as possible to see her first grandchild.

Before she came here, she did a regular checkup and the doctor suspect there might be a metastasis in her 7^th rib on her left (based on CT and bone scan) I couldn’t believe it and started to do research online, that’s how I found here. Finally my parents were here last month and I took my mom to see the oncologist. Again, they did a CT, and thank goodness there is nothing suspicious at all!! But the oncologist did strongly recommend my mom to get Herceptin, once every three weeks for one year.

We would like for her to get Herceptin, but we are not sure about the side effect. My mom is 56, she was quite active (exercise daily and paid attention to her diet that’s why it was devastating for her when she knew she got breast cancer), but she hated chemo so much. Her teeth got loose, she lost
her hair (they grew back now). The oncologist said there won’t be as much side effect as chemo like nausea, hair loss etc., but I still would like to know what you think. Are any of you going through Herceptin only? What side effects do you have? Will it be better than chemo?

Sorry for the tedious post, I don’t know how to express my love to my mom. But I would rather it is me not her get the cancer! I was so helpless, scared and now I know I need to be strong for my mom and my newborn son.

Thank you in advance! And I respect you all!