My Mom breast had cancer 15 and 10 years ago, treated by chemo, mastectomy, tamoxifen and later radiation and arimidex. A year ago she was diagnosed with extensive bone metastasis, lymphatic spread to the lungs and spread to the cerebro-spinal fluid causing numbness and drooping of her left eyelid and lower left lip. She started on taxol weekly and her tumor marker CA 27-29 went from 650 to 289. She felt so fatigued and depressed from months of weekly chemo that she went to chemo every other week which has not caused her tumor marker to rise. She also started on Zoloft chich helped tremendously. The oncologist told us that without chemo or chemo being effective that my Mom will qualify for hospice. Though her blood work looks better, in reality her condition is continually worsening like shortness of breath with only walking 10 feet and portable oxygen does very little. When she is not walking she does fine. I feel like we are living in a parallel universe from the oncologist because he continues to say how much better her labs are and the chemo is helping. But we tell him that there is a big disconnect from what's on paper and the reality of her increased fatigue, extreme shortness of breath and increased drooping of her face. He has not answered my question as to why labs look better but this is not reflected in her actual condition. Has anyone had this experience or advice for me?