[judy f.]

I am new to this forum and have many more questions than answers, but wanted to share my dad's experience with Dacogen. He is 90, but in fairly good health other than having MDS. His doctor recommended using Dacogen when my dad's blood counts began to drop. My brother and I were worried about the effects of chemotherapy on someone my dad's age, but the doc strongly recommended trying it. After 4 cycles of Dacogen, given every 28 days, my dad is now receiving neupogen injections 5 days each week due to his consistently low WBC--today it was 0.4. We were told that he is neupogen dependent. His doc decided to stop the Dacogen when we expressed our concerns and has scheduled another BMB in a couple of weeks; he also is talking about beginning a new drug, but hasn't told us which one--he wants to wait until after the biopsy. This doc has been less than forthcoming about explaining side-effects, etc. to us, although my dad is unable to fully understand the implications of this disease and treatment. We plan to seek a second opinion, because we have lost confidence in the current doctor, but my dad still must undergo the injections and BMB. Has anyone heard of becoming neupogen dependent from Dacogen? We're worried that this might be permanent. (His RBC has remained over 10 and he just required a platelet infusion, but that hasn't been a major problem.)