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Warning: long and shares openly about metastatic breast cancer, goals of treatment and death. Please read at your own risk and while sitting down in a quiet place. I'm not trying to overwhelm you, but you shouldn't read this in a busy, crowded place or at your workplace. Warmly, Stephanie

Hi Lori,

I am so sorry your mom is in her current condition and that you aren't finding the resources you need from her healthcare providers or online. Are you her designated medical agent? If not, can you work well with the person who is, so you can get and keep in the loop with what's happening for/with her medically? Can you find a way to talk with her doctors directly to get your questions answered?

Lori, you asked us for a prognosis for your mother, because the doctors haven't clearly given one and other online resources are vague at best.

Nobody can say and certainly not us band of folks dealing with MBC. We don't know your mother or her case. We don't know her resources or if and how her body will respond to treatment. We don't know much about the physical condition she's in or if she can even tolerate the treatment she's been offered, much less any future treatments.

I wonder if you're asking for yourself as much as her - how long is she likely to live? Should I take FMLA (family medical leave) from work and go take care of her? Move her in with me? How tough are her ongoing treatments likely to be? And how will her disease likely progress? What future can we all anticipate for my mother and for ourselves?

Of course, these are my wonderings, not your questions, Lori.

But, from your description of your mother's current medical condition and the treatment course her oncologists have ordered, she is in dire straits and likely to die of breast cancer - perhaps sooner, perhaps later.

If her doctors were focused on getting rid of her cancer, they'd be treating her brain, as well as her lungs, as well as her whole system with chemotherapy.

Brain metastasis is usually treated with radiation and special drugs that cross the blood-brain barrier. Regular chemotherapy doesn't.

Bone metastases are additionally treated with targeted radiation and injections or infusions of bone strengthening drugs to prevent pain and breaking.

It sounds like they are focused on symptom relief or palliative treatment of her lung mets with both the oxygen and the chemotherapy. Basically, they are trying to make her feel better, not cure her cancer.

Metastatic cancer isn't considered curable, but is treatable and some achieve what is called remission (the disease retreats). Even stability (the disease stops growing and taking over the body) while on treatment. The cancer is unlikely to go away or be cured - though as Deanna mentioned, there are always miracles.

But miracles are, by definition, unusual or unexpected.

What doctors expect is for someone with very advanced cancer is death by disease. And their treatment goals are to make the patient feel better, not worse.

At a certain point, hope in advanced cancer is more about feeling better and less about beating the cancer. And at a later point, hospice is called in to focus fully on addressing pain, distress and symptoms of a dying body.

There is still hope while on hospice - only it's different.

Lori, I was on palliative care for 4 1/2 years and have been under hospice care since last November. It isn't a death sentence, but a chance to work with my team to achieve my best possible quality of life.

You will need to find a way to get more information about your mom's condition through her or through her doctors, so you can help provide the best hope and care possible for your mother...and so you can plan this next stretch of your life. You can also decide you won't accept the dire news and seek second and third opinions, clinical trial options, continued aggressive treatments. You'll get some good advice here about how to do these things.

Life is 100% fatal for everyone, but metastatic breast cancer can force us to face possible death sooner than we wish.

Lori, I so wish we had clear answers for you...but we just don't know.

You don't know.

Your mom's doctors might have a good guess that they're not clearly telling you. Though nobody knows exactly when or how anyone else will die, there are telling signs, especially as death grows nearer.

Here's an article about life's final days that is very graphic. You might want to bookmark it for a later read, because your mom isn't there yet:

What It Feels Like to Die: Science is just beginning to understand the experience of life's end.

Remember, my response is not only long, but potentially upsetting. I'm one of the few here who speaks openly about death. This group is great for encouraging members to seek and survive treatments and to never lose hope.

My hopes for all of us are slightly different because I believe that facing death can help us clarify life - others' lives and our own.

Please feel free to share more information, ask questions and share your concerns. We might not know what will happen with your mother, but we have big, kind hearts, much life experience and good minds.

Sending warmest healing wishes, Lori, Stephanie