[Alison]

Hi There

I'm sorry to butt into this thread but on doing a search I thought I'd add to it. My Dad hadn't shown any change after his third cycle of Vidaza until yesterday when he went for a blood test and guess what...EUREKA! His HMG was at 10.0 (last transfusion 11 days earlier). My Dad usually averages 2 units per week. His WBC rose from 0.2 to 2.4 and his platelets from 6 to 29. Needless to say, my Mom & Dad went off to the Haemotologist in better spirits than ever before! The doctor has said that he suspects that the Vidaza is working but that my Dad has the worst kind of MDS (estimates survival at 2 years and 1 year to leukemia). He feels that the Vidaza is likely to put him into remission but it will probably return in a year and then the whole cycle will have to start again.

I passed on Birgitta's information to my Mom on the sub-types and the Haemotologist responded that he has all sub-types and is a "very sick man". He told my folks that the only cure would be a bone marrow transplant. At the age of 61 the mortality rate is 10%. My Dad has two brothers and we have asked them to go for matching so we hold thumbs. In the meantime the Doc has advised that he continue with Vidaza and hopefully get his counts up so that he can go through with the transplant.

This has been really tough news for all of us to bear but we are grateful that we have a way forward. The transplant is going to be extremely costly but we are going to try and raise funds. I'll do more searches on this site to gain more insight as we explore the option of transplantation.

In the meantime the poor guy suffers on a daily basis and his latest irritation is itching and hives. I noted that that some of the patients use Zyrtec and Benedryl and we are going to check out whether these drugs are available in South Africa as he hasn't been prescribed this medication.

Regards
Alison