Mom/questions

I found this website yesterday and am so thankful for all the great info. My mom is Stage IV, extensive mets throughout spine (two vertebrae nearly gone), mets in pelvis and multiple lesions in liver. We've been given a minimum of info from the doc - so frustrating, She has appt today for results of echocardiogram, and possibly to start chemo w/ Herceptin. She's on 160mg/8hrs of oxycontin (this has been increased 2x in the last week), w/ MSIR 60mg as needed for breakthrough pain. I am woefully uneducated about all this and trying to quickly fill in the gaps - Is it possible she can max out on the pain meds? A couple of weeks ago, they were saying not to worry about the pain, they could control it, now are saying that it will be a balance between how alert she wants to be and what level of pain she can accept. Have any of you experienced this? I don't know what level of confusion I can expect with the meds she is on, but she has times where she is significantly confused, and she has times where she is very alert, and there does not seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. I don't know if lungs or brain have been scanned, but based on some of the postings here, I intend to find out. Also, she was in the hospital for a couple of weeks for radiation and pain control - Doc said that there was not enough tissue from liver biopsy to determine Her2neu status, but that initial breast cancer dx in 2000 was Her2neu+ (Stage I DCIS left breast, lumpectomy then mastectomy, clean nodes, give clean bill of health until three weeks ago) and they could make an assumption from that. Can that assumption be made (like I said, woefully uneducated!) from your experience? Can or does it ever change? Mom does not want to hear the answers to many of the questions that Dad and I have, and the onc has not been very available - I am sure she would give him permission to talk to us, though, so we have to try to cross that hurdle today. Sorry for long post - Just starting out with research (totally overwhelmed) and any information would be much appreciated. Thanks so much for such a great support site.

Mel