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Beth,
An MDS diagnosis is always unwelcome news but there are a number of positives in your situation. Your husband has a potential match, he's avoided fevers, has no bone pain, and is said not to have AML. If he's responding to Vidaza too then I'd say you have reasons for optimism. Medical research into MDS treatments and cures marches forward every day and you're there supporting him and gathering more information to help him. Those are pluses too.
Nobody can tell you what the future holds. It's true that some patients succumb to MDS. But drugs now let some patients keep MDS at bay for many years. We don't even know the upper limit -- how long MDS can keep working -- since it's been approved for MDS treatment for only about a decade. And cures are possible too. My wife was cured of MDS by a bone marrow transplant in the 1990s, and transplants are safer now than they were then.
Neupogen (filgrastim) is used to treat neutropenia, meaning that it's used to boost the white count. Blasts are immature white blood cells. Normally they are less than 5% of bone marrow cells. If they are over 5% then you want them as low as possible; it's one of the ways they rate the severity of MDS.
Perhaps you could tell us more about your husband's condition, e.g., what his blood count levels have been (presumably low if he needs transfusions and tires and bruises easily), his age group, his overall health, his MDS subtype (something to find out if you don't already know), and the questions you have for us.
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