I'm sorry to hear about the difficult decisions and choices you are faced with.
Phase I trials are extremely experiemental. For you to make a truly informed decision you should know what has been found so far with the people who have taken the treatment till this point. There is more info about questions concerning trials to be found on WebCafe's main site here:
blcwebcafe.org/clinicaltrials.asp
An excerpt:
"Phase I
This is the riskiest as well as the most important step of drug development, due to the fact that although the treatment has been studied in laboratory animals, most times it has yet to be tried on people. Phase1 trials test the treatment on a small patient population who have failed standard therapies. Primary goals of phase I trials are determining
-anticancer activity of the treatment
-the manner in which the drug works in the body
-effective dosages, toxic side effects and the management of these
A phase I study starts by giving a very low dose of the drug, then the dose is slowly increased as new patients enter the trial. The dose can be increased by giving more at one time or by giving the same dose more often."
There is more info on that page that might be informative.
Herceptin and Taxol both have side effects, Taxol being a chemo, and Herceptin a targeted therapy for those with elevated HER2 oncogene. These are both investigational,too, so I wonder why you aren't being offered a phase II or III trial for someone in your situation (seeking second line treatment, preferably something close to home), I'm sure they must exist too, at least I would think so.
I wish you and your family wisdom and strength with this tough decision.
Wendy