My wife had spinal mets, that was the first indication she had that her cancer had metastasised. It is one of the most common sites. Bone mets won't of themselves kill you, but they can cause a lot of pain and structural failures. Radiotherapy to the affected bones can set back individual tumours for a couple of years or so, and generally does a great deal to remove the pain. But you can only have radiotherapy once to each area, after that it would damage the spinal cord or other soft tissues.
Lesser, on-structurally-threatening pains are dealt by morphine or related analgesics. When it got bad we found Fentanyl skin patches very good, much less side effects than slow-release morphine. If you do get onto opiates, beware of constipation, doctors sometimes forget about this side effect and only react when it happens. But it is a lot better to take a mild dose of laxatives regularly with the analgesic from the start because it takes days of discomfort to get back to 'normal' bowel function once the problem has occurred, then you tend to oscillate to either side of normality for weeks until you find the right laxative dosage to keep you 'regular'.
You can read my stories about my wife's cancer at
http://www.tim-jackson.co.uk/cancer.html
Tim Jackson
cindy
