Mother diagnosed with Stage IV RCC

My mother (who just turned 70) was hospitalized for 3 days last week to do tests after her MD found alarming results on a chest x-ray and CT scan. Then in the hospital they did a contrast CT scan of the kidney and lower chest and then an MRI of her spine and a bone scan, as well as multiple blood tests. She had small nodules all over her lungs and a large tumor in her kidney approx 7cm. The oncologist, urologist, and pulpomary dr she saw there were all predicting kidney cancer, but since my mom was a breast cancer survivor from 1997 we (her kids) were hoping these areas were from her breast cancer. We wanted a biopsy of the lung nodules, but they all agreed they were too small and the risk too great; then they noticed small nodules in the adrenal gland (the one near the healthy kidney) so they decided to do a biopsy of these - which they did yesterday. The docs were right! The oncologist called her today to say the biobsy showed clear cell renal carcinoma - since we were already planning to have the kidney removed (due to the size of the tumor) she is scheduled for a consult with the surgeon on Monday and they plan to do the surgery later next week.

Now we need to decide what to do from here. We are looking at taking her to MD Anderson, as they seem to have the most cases per year and possible more treatment options then are available in the Kansas City area - but we (myself and siblings) are really new to this area and her previous breast cancer was nothing to fight, whereas this sounds much worse.

Does anyone have advice on whether it is better to travel for help or just go with what is available in your area or maybe doing both, some here, some there? We don't want to make it harder on her, but we want her to live!! My children are already old enough to know their grandmother and remember her for forever, but one of my sister's has a 3 yr old and a 2 yr old and she is devistated that there is the potential they will not get to know her long enough to remember, my other sister (the baby of the family) has not yet married and had children, my brother has two older children and a 2 yr old. My children have already brought her 2 great-grandchildren and another is on the way. We are not ready to have her depart us - are we asking too much to push her to fight??? How much is too much???

We are a close family, but our parents divorced after 25 years of marraige, so she doesn't have a spouse - just us kids and our kids; in addition to her own siblings (all still living and she is #3 of 8) so we have a huge support system for her - almost all of us live within 40 miles of each other and her. We all want her to fight, but how do we know for sure that we are not going too far????

Anyone with advice on this matter??

Bennette