Thanks for your input, Jan. My mom's doctors are in dialogue with doctors at the Mayo Clinic about her MM: on their recommendation at the Mayo, her oncologist has her on VELCADE - which does seem to be helping. I got a better answer regarding what one of them had said about MM being "merciful". I misunderstood -- I think what was said is that once my mom goes into total renal failure, it's basically something like a 10-to-15-day-countdown-to-heaven...and at that point as her body ceases to be able to rid itself of toxins, they'll build and build and it is this process that causes her to be more or less numb to pain. If I understood that correctly...I'm getting this third hand from another sibling... it still doesn't make any sense to me. The other confusing point is that I've heard one doctor say she has bone cancer, but I looked MM up and it specifically says on MedNet.com that MM is NOT bone cancer... it starts in the blood cells not the bone cells... but another doctor said mom has "secondary bone cancer" because it IS now in her bones. You know, I just want to tear my hair out. Thanks again for taking the time to respond. It helps me not feel so alone to know my family isn't the only one going through what we are with our mom. -B