Mom with Stage IV TNBC for the past 3.5 years and going

Hello,

I am new to the forum and wanted to tell you my mom's story and see if other people have any feedback.

My mom was diagnosed Stage IV in October 2013 at age 57, with multiple brain mets and lung mets and paralysis to her left hand and foot. She had whole brain radiation, which worked well with minimal side effects and brought back 99% of the mobility of her hand and foot, and was put on Xeloda. That didn't work so two months later she was put on taxol and carboplatin and these significantly reduced her breast tumor and nearly cleared all of her lung tumors. She was on this combo for about 11 months until she had some progression. Then the doctor put her on a clinical trial at Yale which did not work for her tumors but (surprise, surprise), it worked to correct her vision to the point that she doesn't need to wear contacts anymore.

After this clinical trial failed, the doctor did another biopsy and told her that her cancer may be Her2+; she was put on Herceptin and Perjeta for five months and neither of them worked, so we revised the diagnosis back to triple negative (I think her doctor earns a percentage of the sales from Herceptin). She was then put on a combo of Avastin/Gemzar and her breast tumor is now gone but the cancer has appeared on her spine and adrenal glands. In September of 2016, she started developing back pain but didn't think much of it until January of 2017, when the back pain had moved up her body. She had a bunch of scans done and confirmed that she has progression to her spine (now doing 5 radiation treatments), lungs, and a few brain mets but the breast tumor is not active anymore.

Her quality of life is OK, but being on decadron for the past three weeks and having radiation to her spine has limited her mobility and her mood is low for the time being (she has just come off the decadron too). The doctor now wants to put her on Avastin and some other combination as well as xGeva for the bones.

My question is, are there any ladies here who have had cancer to multiple sites and have lived past five years? I know that everyone is different and that statistics are just that, but I need some hope. Initially when she was diagnosed 3.5 years ago and I was reading online forums about whole brain radiation, the statistics were grim, but it has worked well for her these past 3.5 years. Our other problem is that her doctor focuses more of treating the pain and less on the general treatment. He literally takes like 5 minutes to come up with a treatment plan off the top of his head and even offered to put her on Herceptin again last week, which did not work for her in the past (we refused it).