Mom’s cancer growing again, starting new regimen

It’s been a while since I posted anything. My mom had a really nice treatment-free run and we tried to forget about the cancer for a while. But it has reared its ugly head again and I hope someone can answer some of my questions. Mom was diagnosed with Stage IV in May 2010 at the age of 73. She has surpassed expectations of all our hometown doctors (4-6 & 12-18 months). The competitor that she is, she loves the fact that she beat those stats! Dr. Javle at MD Anderson has been directing her care. The cancer was on both lobes of the liver and wrapped around the portal vein, so deemed inoperable. She endured chemo here in Lafayette, LA for eight months…gemcitabine/cisplatin. Initially the cancer responded well, but by March, cancer was shrinking & growing in other places. In April, she had 5 weeks of Targeted Proton Radiation at MD Anderson in Houston, TX. Her followup in July showed her cancer markers down to 907 but small nodules noted in the lungs. We went back to Houston two weeks ago and new nodules have developed in the liver and nodules in lung have doubled…still under 1 cm.
So today she started her new regimen…Gemcitabine & Xeloda. Her platelets level was 89 today! This seems odd to me because they were only that low after six months of chemo and she hasn’t had chemo in eight months. Any thoughts? Is this common?
We are also not sure what to expect from Xeloda. Doctor says she’ll tolerate it well, but medication nurse kept emphasizing side effects. I’ve read a few entries here where people didn’t tolerate, but it wasn’t teamed with Gemcitabine.
It’s almost harder facing the chemo this time…for all of us. Mom is the most positive person in the world and she won’t hear of it being hard…but it was! It was such a sweet run with no treatment and I’m praying that God will see fit to give us more time… that’s what we all want here, right? Any suggestions or information regarding platelets and Xeloda will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Julie