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Ray,
Your first hurdle would be getting the VA to admit / say your MDS was service connected. In my case I am using two rationales 1) MDS being caused by Agent Orange; 2) MDS being caused by the High Dose Rate Brachytherapy I received for prostate cancer (which was service connected).

At the present time MDS is not assumed to be caused by Agent Orange but Dr. David Steensma from the Dana Farber is supposed to be starting a study to see if Viet Nam Veterans who have MDS and were exposed to Agent Orange have a statistically high enough cancer rate to say Agent Orange caused the MDS.

Almost all VA hospitals have a Veterans' Assistance advisor to help you file a claim. My prostate cancer was presumed to have been caused by Agent Orange so getting that rating was easy. At this time you would have to prove your MDS was service connected (caused by your time in the service).

As far as what happens after you are cured I would assume it is same as any other service connected disability and you would be rated on "residuals" of the disease. In the case of treatment by stem cell transplant I can think of one thing that might be considered a residual and that would be Graft versus Host Disease. How much they would rate it would likely be determined by the severity of the GVHD.

Our best hope is the VA will conclude (someday) that MDS is presumed to have been caused by Agent Orange just like they finally did with Prostate cancer. That makes filing a claim so much easier.

Good Luck

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