From
Maui TV News
for the week of November 27, 2008

Maui's chief criminalist is now it's most prominent victim. Julie Wood suffers from Mucinous Adenocarcinoma Of The Appendix - an extremely rare cancer. Doctors on Maui and O'ahu told her there was no successful treatment available - and conventional chemotherapy would likely give her a little more time. Essentially, they said, "say your goodbyes" and suggested she do that within the coming 60-90 days.

That was two and a half years ago.

Since then Julie has fought, researched, investigated, mortgaged her home and undergone grueling treatments. Now she faces the biggest fight of the whole process: the one against time and money. Watch Julie's story on Maui TV News and learn about Julie's Hope. Learn, too, what you can do to help.

A complete transcript of the report follows.

JY: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR DOCTOR TOLD YOU HAD CANCER THAT COULD NOT BE CURED? THAT'S JUST WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SENIOR CRIMINALIST AT THE MAUI POLICE DEPARTMENT. BUT JULIE WOOD IS A FIGHTER AS WELL AS A SCIENTIST AND SHE HAS BEATEN TREMENDOUS ODDS TO NOT ONLY SURVIVE - BUT TO REMAIN ON THE JOB. MAUI TV NEWS REPORTER JEFF KING PICKS UP THE STORY FROM THERE.

(TAKE JULIE'S HOPE PKG) ON TV, THE CSI CRIME LAB IS DARK. DRAMATIC, HIGH TECH AND SEXY. ON MAUI, THE CSI LAB IS SMALL, BRIGHT, HIGH TECH AND - KINDA SEXY. JULIE WOOD IS MAUI'S CHIEF CSI SCIENTIST. SHE DOESN'T HAVE A DEPARTMENT OF 100 LIKE GRISSOM DOES ON THE SHOW - BUT SHE EXPLAINS WHICH ONE WOULD BE HER.

Julie Wood, Maui Police Dept. Senior Criminalist

JW01: "On CSI I would be the person in the lab coat with the goggles on. That would be my function."

UNLIKE THE TV SHOW, HER COAT IS NOT CUSTOM TAILORED ARMANI. BU THE EQUIPMENT AND THE TASKS ARE JUST AS REAL AS THEY ARE ON TV. ALSO - LIKE THE TV SHOW - AS A CRIMINALIST, JULIE EXPLAINS THINGS SCIENTIFICALLY - THEN IN A LANGUAGE YOU AND I CAN UNDERSTAND.

JW02: "I have Mucinous Adenocarcinoma Of The Appendix - so basically, I have cancer of the appendix."

AND THIS IS THE PART OF THIS STORY WHERE THE COMPARISONS END. ON TV, THE DRAMA OF CSI IS COMPELLING - BUT BY THE END OF THE HOUR, THEY USUALLY SOLVE THE MYSTERY AND GET A CONVICTION. BUT THE LIFE AND DEATH DRAMA FOR JULIE WOOD IS TAKING LONGER THAN THAT - AND, AT THIS POINT, NOBODY KNOWS HOW IT WILL END. HER CANCER IS RARE.

JW03: "Very rare. Only about one in 10 million people. And of that 10 million, I have an extremely rare cell type."

AND IF THAT ISN'T CRUEL ENOUGH - HERE'S WHEN SHE GOT THE NEWS

JW04: "On Valentine's Day 2006."

WITH ONLY A TINY FRACTION OF ALL CANCER PATIENTS SUFFERING FROM THIS RARE CANCER, TREATMENT OPTIONS ARE ALSO EXTREMELY RARE. IN FACT, AT FIRST DOCTORS TOLD HER THERE WERE NO TREATMENTS - THAT SHE SHOULD PUT HER AFFAIRS IN ORDER AND SAY HER GOODBYES. AS A SCIENTIST - SHE REFUSED TO ACCEPT THAT ANSWER AND PURSUED TREATMENT ON THE MAINLAND THAT INCLUDED MORE SURGERY AND A PROCESS CALLED HEATED CHEMOTHERAPY - WHICH WAS HORRIBLE TO ENDURE - BUT PREFERRABLE TO THE ALTERNATIVE.

JW05: "Even an the time of the surgery they had already scheduled me for intravenous chemotherapy - so I knew I had a long road ahead of me."

AND - AS A SCIENTIST - SHE ALSO HAD A MUCH CLEARER UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING THAN MOST OTHER PEOPLE WOULD.

JW06: "My philosophy in life has always been that 'knowledge is power' thing, right? Which serves a purpose to a point. Unfortunately, there's things that sometimes you can't do anything about. And then - emotionally - that became kind of challenging."

HER FRIENDS AND FAMILY SUPPORTED HER AS BEST THEY COULD.

JW07: "I asked them to filter any information for prognosis because I didn't want to know at that time. Emotionally I wasn't coping very well because I knew the prognosis wasn't very good - but I didn't want to see any numbers. And so they filtered everything for me. They would send documents to me and say 'read up until page four - but don't read paragraph two.' Or they would cut it out and fax it to me. That helped keep my emotional state a little higher. Then, eventually, as I got more effective at coping, I was able to deal with some of those harder numbers and face the music, so to speak."

JULIE'S WORLD IS BASED IN FACTS - NUMBERS, DETAILS, SCIENCE AND REALITY. BUT JULIE'S LIFE IS MUCH BIGGER THAN THAT - THAT'S WHERE JULIE'S HOPE COMES IN. SHE REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE INITIAL - FINAL DECREE. SO SHE PUSHED HER INSURANCE COMPANY, MORTGAGED HER HOUSE, PAID FOR THE TREATMENT UP FRONT AND TRAVELLED TO THE EAST COAST FOR WHAT WAS INITIALLY DECLARED EXPERIMENTAL BY HER INSURANCE COMPANY. IT HAS A LONG NAME, BUT OFFERED THE CHANCE TO SURVIVE FAR BEYOND THE INITIAL TWO TO THREE MONTHS HER DOCTOR ON O'AHU TOLD HER SHE HAD.

JW08: "Some people that have been treated with that have survived up to 20 years - which looked a lot better than three months without treatment."

JULIE SAID IT TOOK ABOUT THREE MONTHS OF RECOVERY FROM THE TREATMENT BEFORE SHE FELT STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE ON THE INSURANCE COMPANY. SHE COLLECTED THE E3VIDENCE, SUBMITTED HER FINDINGS AND WON HER CASE. THE INSURANCE COMPANY PAID FOR HER TREATMENT. BUT, MORE IMPORTANTLY, TOOK IT OFF THE EXPERIMENTAL LIST FOR ANYONE ELSE FACING WHAT JULIE IS FACING.

JW09: "So now that treatment is available to other people here in Hawai'i. I feel good about that. It was a hard fight for me but I'm hoping that I did some good for other people in that fight."

WHERE THIS CANCER COMES FROM - NOBODY KNOWS. JULIE'S RESEARCH SHOWED THAT IT HAPPENS TO ALL ETHNICITIES, AGES AND SEXES. IT DOESN'T HAPPEN MORE IN THE NORTH OR SOUTH - AND ISN'T CAUSED BY EXPOSURE TO THE CHEMICALS USED IN HER SCIENTIFIC WORK.

AFTER THE SURGERY AND CHEMOTHERAPY, HER CANCER WENT INTO REMISSION - UNTIL ABOUT SIX MONTHS AGO. ANOTHER ROUND OF CHEMO HAS STABILIZED HER CONDITION - BUT THAT'S NOT NECESSARILY GOOD NEWS. NOW, JULIE'S HOPE LIES HALF A WORD AWAY - IN STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, FOR ANOTHER TREATMENT STILL CONSIDERED EXPERIMENTAL IN THE U.S. - A THERAPY THAT HARVESTS HEALTHY CELLS FROM HER BODY. SCIENTISTS ISOLATE THE CELLS THAT RECOGNIZE THE CANCER INVADERS AND ALLOW THEM TO REPLICATE EN MASSE. THEN THE HEALTHY CELLS ARE REINSERTED VIA A REGULAR BLOOD TRANSFUSION, AND HER OWN IMMUNE SYSTEM BEGINS TO FIGHT THE INVADING CANCER CELLS. IT'S CALLED ADOPTIVE IMMUNOTHERAPY

JW10: "...which is a completely different way to treat cancer. It has nothing to do with surgery or chemotherapy or radiation. It's an idea that's been around for a long time but technology has not allowed us to implement it."///

JULIE SAYS THAT EARLY STUDIES HAVE SHOWN 16 OUT OF 16 POSITIVE RESPONSES IN PATIENTS TREATED THIS WAY. STILL, CLINICAL TRIALS AND RED TAPE WILL LIKELY KEEP THE TREATMENT OUT OF THE U.S. FOR YEARS. AGAIN - BEYOND HER OWN SURVIVAL - JULIE'S HOPE IS THAT BY GOING THROUGH THE TREATMENT HERSELF, IT, TOO, WILL BE AVAILABLE TO OTHERS IN AMERICA WHO NEED IT SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.

THE CSI LAB AT THE MAUI POLICE DEPARTMENT IS PRETTY CRAMPED - SO IT HELPS THAT JULIE AND CRIMINALIST DIANA CUSTER GET ALONG WELL. DIANA HAS KNOWN JULIE FOR MANY YEARS, BUT ONLY LAST YEAR GOT THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK DIRECTLY WITH HER.

Diana Custer, MPD Criminalist

DC01: "This was the job I wanted to do when I was here 10 years ago. It was really a dream come true for me to come back into the lab and be able to work under Julie and learn from her."///

DIANA'S BACKGROUND IN IMMUNOLOGY WAS PIQUED WHEN SHE LEARNED ABOUT THE SWEDISH TREATMENT, AND SHE - TOO - DELVED INTO HOW IT WORKS.

DC02: "We have a saying from a fellow scientist: 'Don't overlook the obvious.' And the treatment in Sweden is really the obvious treatment for cancer."///

DC03:"///As soon as I heard about it as a friend I was passionate and, as a scientist, double passionate and triply passionate after watching someone go through chemotherapy."

WORKING IN SUCH CLOSE QUARTERS WITH HER FRIEND AND MENTOR AND WATCHING HER GO THROUGH THE RAVAGES OF BOTH THE DISEASE - AND THE CONVENTIONAL TREATMENT - DEVOTING HER LIFE TO JULIE'S HOPE WAS A NO-BRAINER FOR DIANA. SINCE JULY, THE FUNDRAISING EFFORTS HAVE BEEN NON-STOP, AND THE RESULTS INDUCE CHICKEN SKIN. A CANDY JAR AT THE DEPARTMENT'S INTAKE WINDOW DOWNSTAIRS, A FOOD AND WINE PAIRING AT THE GRAND WAILEA, A RUMMAGE SALE, ONLINE DONATIONS AND THE SALES OF VERY COOL "JULIE'S HOPE" POLO SHIRTS. ATLANTIS SUBMARINES DONATES SUNDAY PROCEEDS TO JULIE'S HOPE AS WELL. ALL OF THESE EFFORTS HAVE ADDED UP TO MORE THAN HALF OF THE AMOUNT THEY'LL NEED TO SEND JULIE WOOD TO STOCKHOLM - AND THAT'S A LOT. THE GOAL IS 200 THOUSAND DOLLARS AND AS OF THIS WEEK, THEY'VE RAISED 111 THOUSAND OF THAT MOUNT. TRANSPORTATION AND LODGING ALONE WILL COST NEARLY 90 THOUSAND DOLLARS.

THEY'RE OPEN TO FUND RAISING IDEAS - AND, COULD REALLY BENEFIT FROM AN ANGEL STEPPING UP FROM ONE OF THE AIRLINES THAT TRAVELS BETWEEN HONOLULU AND STOCKHOLM.

DC04: "There's unique people in the world that are very rare. You only meet a few of them in your life and Julie's definitely one of those people. She's been that for me from day one."

AND DIANA WILL STAY WITH JULIE THROUGH IT ALL. THEY NEED YOUR SUPPORT, TOO - MOSTLY IN MONEY - BUT IN OTHER WAYS, TOO. BY HELPING JULIE YOU MAY BE HELPING COUNTLESS OTHERS BY SPEEDING UP THE PROCESS OF BRINGING THIS ADVANCED AND PROMISING TREATMENT TO THE U.S. AS JULIE PUTS IT, "IT'S TIME FOR THE SCIENCTIST TO BECOME THE GUINEA PIG."

JW11. "I would really like people to understand that I'm not just doing this for myself. When it first started it was kind of about that but as I've been working I've been realizing how important it is to help other people. I really feel strongly and passionate about getting well and then working toward getting that therapy here for others. It's very important to me.

REPORTING FROM WAILUKU FOR MAUI TV NEWS, I'M JEFF KING.

(ON-CAM TAG) IF YOU'D LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JULIE'S HOPE AND HOW YOU CAN HELP, YOU CAN GO DIRECTLY TO HER WEBSITE AT JULIESHOPE-DOT-COM. TO DONATE DIRECTLY TO JULIE'S HOPE IN PERSON, YOU CAN DROP BY ANY BRANCH OF THE BANK OF HAWAII.

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