[DarinV]

My Mom (67) was diagnosed with MDS in October 2010. With Blasts of 6% I believe she is considered to be intermediate 1.

She began a regiment of weekly shots of Procrit. After 6 weeks they added a shot of Neupogen. After her second week of two shots, she was suffereing tremendous pain, accompanied by fever. She was admitted to the hospital and stayed about 9 days. She was given Cipro her entire stay. She did receive 2 units of blood when her red blood cells went below 8.0 It was explained that she had a bad reaction to the neupogin and there must have been an underlying (unkown) infection.

She then went to rehab with the goal that when she gets home and regains strength, she would start Vidaza.

Every night her fever would go to 101 -101.5. The fever was managed with Tylenol, and it was explained that fevers sometimes accompany MDS. After two weeks in rehab, her fever spiked to 103.4 and she was sent back to the hospital. Her ankle was swollen also.

She has been in the hospital for 9 days now. Her red blood cells dropped to 7.10 and she has required 1 unit transfusion to keep her counts up. An infection has never been indentified. She remained on Cipro and the swollen ankle(s) cleared up. They were going to send her back to rehab two days ago, but a fever 103.3 came back again. Infectious disease is taking her off the Cipro, saying there is no need as they can not spot an infection.

My fear is that there is something at work in addition to the MDS and that it will not be caught until it is too late. The Dr's say that based on her blood counts they do not feel that the MDS has progressed to AML.

It is extremely frustrating not having answers. I have read many threads to try to find a new angle. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks,
Darin