[estelle]

My father was diagonized to have MDS in 2008 when he was 72 and the treatment was effective. After around 1 year treatment, both of his blood and bone marrow test results went back close to normal. The doctor even told him to stop medication just take the blood test every two weeks to keep watching. However since last Nov. the blood counts began to drop down(white blood and platelet), he went back to the medication which didn't work as well as before though. Now, the red blood count also dropped. We recently are facing a problem. He has cough and low fever for over one month. His body temperature (oral) is around 99.1F in the morning and 100 F in the afternoon. He had Xray, the doctor suspected him to have pneumonia but not positively, so prescribed IV antibiotics. My father had the antibiotics for 7 days, but it didn't help with the fever. The cough is a little better but still not over. We had to stop using the antibiotics since the white blood count became even lower. We don't know what to do with this situation. His appetite also became worse in the past 2 months. We don't know how to deal with the situation..... any suggestion? What kind of medication should MDS patients take for situation like cold, fever etc to avoid decreasing blood counts. Any advice or share of experience would be appreciated.