I’m so sorry, Jenn. I know this is extremely difficult for your dad, you and your family to see the rapid decline.
MDS can be a precursor to AML which is what I had 6 years ago, right now as a matter of fact. It literally took only 3 weeks for me to go from being super healthy, walking 10 miles per day with no effort to having less than 24 hours to live. It can come on like a Texas thunderstorm. One minute it’s sunny, then a cloud appears and the next thing you know have a raging apocalypse. The rapid rise of the blast cells in the blood stream push out all the healthy cells so there is little oxygen or platelets circulating. The body can’t function like that. That’s why the transfusions come into play. But those aren’t sustainable either as you’re finding out with the high iron levels.
Because my case was advanced and very aggressive my doctors had no choice but to admit me for 5 weeks with intensive chemo. It was really rough but 3 rounds got me into remission. (I did have a bone marrow transplant immediatly following however)
It is quite normal for blood numbers to drop to frightening lows during the first 10 days after chemo. It’s called neutropenia or the nadir period. Chemo kills quickly dividing cells such as cancer cells. Unfortunately it doesn’t discriminate and kills off all blood cells, mucosal cells lining the stomach, gut and mouth, hair follicles, etc. About the 3rd week after chemo, the blood cells start to regenerate and often return to almost normal right before the next round.
The goal is to knock down the cancer cells.
Do you know if it worked to reduce the number of blasts in his blood count?