[hectorzaza]

Hi all,
Firstly I apologise in advance that this may seem rather long winded but I'm desperate to try to understand my father in law's RAEB,diagnosis was earlier this year.
Unfortunately,my mum+ dad in law[both in their 70's]are always reluctant to ask many questions of doctors,believing that they are 'bothering them' so when giving my hubby and myself info it's very hard to decipher.
We know he has RAEB but don't know if it's 1 or 2.He's been on the synthetic hormone injection,weekly for about 4 mnths and has had 1 transfusion[which made no difference]and has just had the injections stopped as they 'are not working' and is having his 2nd transfusion tomorrow,but then does not see anyone until Jan 18th.....????!!!!!!!
I understand what RAEB means,the blasts etc,and have done a fair bit of research on here,and understand about the % of blasts being important
but the only concrete numbers I can get from mum/dad are as follows
'Normal' blood 16-18
dad's blood 2 months ago up from 7 to 9[not after the transfusion]
blood now at 4
What I just cannot find out is what these numbers refer to,they don't seem to match any type of cell count or % of blasts.
Therefore I cannot hazard a guess as to whether he's into RAEB 2 yet [4 instead of 16-18 sounds bad to me] or whether he should possibly be having more transfusions.They have said that if this transfusion makes no difference it will be chemo.
Hubby and I are really desperate to know how far along the line dad may be
Can anyone shed any light at all on what those blood numbers may be or indicate??
Being partly in the dark like this eats you up and you don't know how prepared you need to be and when.
Any info will be REALLY appreciated and all comments will be answered,
Thank you all in advance