Hi Pat -- It took about a year for the hematologist to cement in an MDS diagnosis. Before that he would call it using wishy-washy words like "lazy bone marrow" and "a tendency toward MDS." As I understand it, MDS in particularly hard to discern, even with a bone marrow biopsy. Again, I am an amateur, but you can certainly ask for Procrit (or Retacrit) treatment, which is a well-known treatment for low hemoglobin. There might be reasons your hematologist has not suggested this, but Rachel finally took Retacrit and her numbers are improving nicely over the past few months.