[Mydad]

I have a few questions which I am hoping someone has experienced and know what to do if anything.

My dad is 76yo; he was diagnosed February 2011 with MDS, Refractory anemia with excessive blasts. He started viadaza immediately in 2010, and continued until February 2012 when it stopped working. He started on Dacogen in March of 2012 and stopped this Chemo in May, he was experiencing every side effect, and the sores in the mouth were the worse. He spent 6 days in the hospital in May for pneumonia, at this point is when he decided to stop and the doctor confirmed that the dacogen was not working.

With being released from the hospital doctor strongly suggested Hospice. This was extremely hard for us to consider due to the fact that he is very mobile, still baths and feeds himself. There are even times he still weed whacks and cut the grass. When I asked the doctor about this, he said that there was nothing else they could try to help or cure the MDS, and that we will need help in the coming months. He had also stated that we probably had 3 months left with my dad (which we DID NOT tell Him this information). Which again seems so unreal due to the fact he is still himself with the exception of being exhausted all the time, and his legs aching continuously. So at this point hospice comes in about once every other week just to check on him.

He still gets labs every Monday, and the Doctors office calls with results, and sets up the transfusions for the next day if needed. He is receiving blood transfusions about every other week, but his red's don't ever get above 7.4, his whites for the last 2 months are ranging from 1.1 to 1.0, and his platelets are 11 - 8. Today after getting labs, they couldn’t stop the bleeding of the injection site, I am sure this is due to the platelet count of 8.

My questions are:
Does anyone know how to increase the platelet counts? Will they ever go back up? He is bruising more severe than ever, well they say it’s not bruising its patches from the low platelet count, has anyone else experienced this?

I just can't imagine my dad dying anytime soon due to the fact other than what I have mentioned above he is fine, talks, eats, walks around, etc. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?