Hi Eddie
I'm really sorry to hear about your mum's news. It must have been a terrible shock for you all.
It's realy hard to give concrete answers because breast cancer is such a complex disease and each of our cancers have a different make-up. Nobody can say how long we have, in the same way that nobody can tell how we'll each respond to treatment. It's horrible living with such uncertainty, but at the same time there are many people who get good responses to chemo and their mets shrink or vanish.
I would imagine that it's good that your mum's mets are confined to one lung (I have them in both). I had a 50% reduction in size from my first line of chemo. I am now on my second line of chemo which has managed to zap some of them completely, and shrink the others.
My oncologist's aim is to reduce the tumours and get the cancer under control so they can maintain it and manage it as a chronic illness.
The other positive thing is that as your mum's tumours are sensitive to oestrogen, there are more treatment options open to her with drugs that suppress the hormones which feed her tumours. Some of us have cancers that aren't receptive to oestrogen or progesteron and so hormone treatment wouldn't work for us. It means we have less treatment options.
I hope your mum's treatment goes well. I'm sure you'll hear from others with positive experiences which can give you some hope. You may also want to post in the Family & Friends forum to hear from others whose family members have had a similar diagnosis.
love & hugs
xxx
