Help
give Maui’s top-notch CSI Scientist a
chance to live
Julie’s life
changed forever on the day she was diagnosed with:
“Aggressive grade mucinousadenocarcinoma of the
appendix with peritoneal metastasis”
What would it be like to be
told you had a cancer that could not be cured? What would you do?
How would you feel? Hello, my name is Diana. My friend, and co-worker, and
the senior Criminalist on Maui,
has a very rare cancer that is considered terminal in the USA.
She dug in and fought through the surgeries and the chemotherapy that our
medical system offers, and has bought some time...but only some. Now those
treatments are losing their effectiveness. She is not done fighting,
though, and is a candidate for a more technologically advanced treatment
offered in Sweden.
Unfortunately, health insurance
doesn’t cover treatment out of the country. But if Julie's not done fighting,
neither are we! It is up to all of us, through a massive grassroots
fundraising drive, to earn the $200,000 needed by this fall for her
treatment. She is your and my dedicated public servant, and also one of the
most amazing people I have ever met. So, as a person served by Julie Wood,
our Criminalist for the Maui Police Department,
won't you help continue the fight?
Julie’s Story
A few years ago Julie didn’t
feel right. She went to doctors many times over the course of a year and was
told: You are healthy as a horse; stop worrying. She tried, but continued to
feel worse; she returned to the doctor who finally felt lumps in her abdomen.
It was presumed to be cancer, and so Julie went to Oahu
for surgery.
The cancer was there; it was a
deadly, rare form of appendix cancer. The doctors informed her there was no
cure and available treatments would just buy a little time; she just needed
to accept dying. Julie may not be as “healthy as a horse” but she is as
“stubborn as a mule” and refused to accept “just quietly dying” as a
reasonable option.
Being an investigative
scientist came in very handy as Julie researched cutting-edge treatments
available in the USA.
She found such a treatment in Baltimore, and after a 2nd mortgage on the
house, off she went for massive abdominal surgery and an internal heated
chemo treatment that is grueling, but can save patients previously considered
terminal.After the
treatment Julie returned to Maui to receive regular
chemo. Upon her return she also jumped right back into work, continuing to
run Maui’s Crime Lab solo as she had for the past
twelve years. To her credit, the surgery she received in Baltimore
is now most likely to be covered by health insurance companies in Hawaii
and is being offered to patients with related cancers.
Although her treatments dramatically
reduced her tumor load, the cancer is still present in Julie. After two years
in remission, the cancer is once again on the move. As she endures another
round of chemo with decreasing effectiveness, she has continued to research
treatment options offered globally. Cancer researchers in Sweden have developed a treatment using
one’s own immune cells to kill the cancer cells and are having very high
survival rates with otherwise fatal cancers. Hopefully, clinical trials in
the USA will start in the future, but Julie
doesn’t have the luxury of time!
With the support of her family, the kokua of Hawaii residents, and help from her
mainland friends, Julie can go to Sweden and undergo their lifesaving surgery
and lymph cell propagation and transfusion. By helping Julie, you may be
helping countless others by speeding up the process of getting this advanced
and promising treatment to the USA. As Julie puts it “it is time for
this scientist to become the Guinea Pig!”
Julie DID
Go
… TO SWEDEN
WITH OUR KOKUA …
On January 19, 2009 Julie traveled to Sweden
for her treatment. She was able to return home on March 24th.
You can learn more
about her progress on the Updates
page.
Julie was a Captain
for several years before she started working at the Crime Lab.
During Hurricane Iniki she safely brought the Manute’a
into LahainaHarbor.
