Julies Hope

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Fact Box

To Help Fundraising efforts for cancer patient Julie Wood include:

Julie Wood Golf

Tournament, Sept. 6,

Elleair Golf Course.

Entry fee is $125. Entry deadline is Sept. 2.

Information: 244-6435.

Direct donations to: "Julie's Hope" in care of C. Takashima, P.O. Box 10253, Lahaina 96761.

Information online at: mauigateway.com/

~jgwood/Hope.htm.

WAILUKU - Julie Wood already has defied the odds, surviving past the two-year mark since she was diagnosed with a rare cancer.

Now friends and co-workers of the Maui Police Department criminalist are joining in an effort to raise $200,000 so she can travel to Sweden for advanced treatment that could be a cure.

A golf tournament is planned Sept. 6 at Elleair Golf Course in Kihei, and "Time In A Bottle" donation jars have been placed at various locations. Donations also can be made to "Julie's Hope" at any Bank of Hawaii location.

"I think when people hear her story, the generosity will be there," said Diana Custer, who is coordinating the grass-roots fundraising effort for her friend and co-worker. "Julie's great to work with; she's brilliant. She sets a fabulous example for work ethic and fortitude.

"She's really a force of nature."

For the past 12 years, Wood has run the MPD Crime Lab, a job that includes weighing and testing drug evidence, as well as testing and validating scientific instruments used in the analysis. Wood prepares reports and testifies in court cases. The lab handles 300 to 500 cases a year, requiring analysis of 800 to 1,200 pieces of evidence.

Wood did the work alone until last August, when Custer began training to fill a second position in the lab. The two met about 10 years ago when Custer first worked at the police department.

"I did come back in this situation where, unfortunately, one of my favorite people in the world has this affliction," Custer said.

But she said she has been inspired by Wood's determination and strength as she continues to work and develop strategies to battle her cancer.

Wood was told her cancer was incurable when she was diagnosed on Valentine's Day 2006 with "aggressive grade mucinous adenocarcinoma of the appendix with peritoneal metastasis," a rare form of appendix cancer. The diagnosis followed surgery on Oahu that occurred seven months after Wood began going to different doctors, complaining that "something was wrong."

Refusing to accept an opinion that she had a "two-year outside window to survive," Wood drew on her training as a scientist to research treatments available in the United States. She found one in Baltimore.

When her health insurance company initially wouldn't cover the procedure, Wood and her husband, Greg, took out a second mortgage on their Upcountry house to pay for the massive abdominal surgery and internal heated chemotherapy treatment.

Later, she won an appeal of the decision by the insurance company, which ended up covering the treatment. The decision could make it easier for some other cancer patients to undergo the procedure, Wood said.

Wood was off from work for about three months. But after returning to Maui and receiving regular chemotherapy treatments, she insisted on returning to her job.

Her doctor was ready to sign disability papers for her.

"He said, 'You can't go back to work, you're disabled,' " she said. "I said, 'No, I'm not. I can do my job.'

"I can't lie in bed," Wood said. "I have to get back to work and get back to my life."

In April, Wood started a second round of chemotherapy, continuing to work and train Custer.

She also continued to investigate cancer treatments, learning about a procedure developed by cancer researchers in Sweden. While her treatments so far have reduced the cancer in her body, Wood said she knows she needs more advanced treatment to survive.

The procedure in Sweden involves taking a patient's own cells that are recognizing and fighting the cancer, propagating the cells and putting them back into the body, Wood said.

"They are basically building this whole army of seek-and-destroy cells," she said. "There aren't side effects because it's all your own tissue. It's a very simple concept, but the execution has been difficult."

The process involves surgery, but much of the work occurs in a laboratory where cultures are grown.

"For about 50 percent of people or more, they are able to arrest the disease - and in some people, they have been able to cure it," she said. "Those odds are compared to what I am looking at, which is zero. You got to try."

Through an Internet support group, Wood met a Swedish man with the same rare cell type. After receiving the treatment through his national health care, he is now cancer free, Wood said.

"That's another reason I'm pretty confident it's going to work for me," she said. "They say I'm a good candidate. The holdup now is just getting the funds together."

But the experimental treatment isn't covered by Wood's insurance.

Co-workers and friends, including some from her eight years as a boat captain for dive and snorkel charters at Lahaina Harbor, are all helping in the fundraising. Records Section workers prepared the donation jars that so far have been placed at MPD, other agencies, the Honolulu Police Department and Kuau Mart.

"We told Julie we want to help," said Jonie Chong Kee, acting Records Section manager.

She and Capt. Larry Hudson are organizing the Julie Wood Golf Tournament, which will start at 6:30 a.m. Sept. 6 with breakfast of Portuguese bean soup. The entry fee is $125 per person, with a three-person scramble format. An awards ceremony with heavy pupu will conclude the tournament. The entry deadline is Sept. 2.

Fliers are available at the Wailuku Police Station. Information also can be obtained by calling Hudson at 244-6435. "I wouldn't be doing this if I really didn't care about her," Hudson said.

Custer said the fundraising effort will include "Julie's Hope" volunteers at the entrance to the Maui County Fair. Volunteers are also planning rummage sales and other fundraisers for Wood, who turns 52 in August.

More information about Wood and the treatment in Sweden is available at the Web site mauigateway.com/~jgwood/Hope.htm.

Donations can be sent directly to "Julie's Hope," in care of C. Takashima, P.O. Box 10253, Lahaina 96761.

For now, Wood's goal is "trying to stay as healthy as I can" to prepare for the treatment, which would involve staying in Sweden for four to six weeks. She has taken up cooking as a new hobby, preparing meals on days when she feels well and freezing them for days when she is affected by the chemotherapy.

After losing 44 pounds during her first round of chemotherapy, Wood has increased the protein as well as organic food in her diet. This time, she has kept her weight loss to about 10 pounds.

"I had a lot of challenges, but that was the hardest one - dealing with trying to eat when you have no appetite," Wood said. "I knew I had to make an extreme effort at nutrition or I was going to die of wasting."

Originally from Ohio, Wood earned a bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Tampa in Florida and has a teaching credential in biology, chemistry and physics from Humboldt State University in California. In California, she worked for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms laboratory in San Francisco; the Santa Clara County Crime Lab, where she did analysis in drug-related homicides; and a water quality lab in Arcata.

She was on her way to a university research expedition to Enewetak atoll when she first visited Maui, stopping to see a friend. "I fell in love with it," she said.

A scuba diver since 1979, Wood returned to be a dive master for the summer to fill in when her friend moved to Kauai in 1986. She ended up staying, working her way up to captain and meeting her husband, a dive master and scuba instructor for Atlantis Submarines.

Above her desk at work, Wood has a photo of huge waves crashing as she piloted the boat Manute'a into Lahaina Harbor during Hurricane Iniki in September 1993. It was after that stressful day that she considered changing jobs.

She began working at MPD in 1994 as an evidence technician. The following year, she completed six months of training at HPD for her current job.

Outside of work, Wood is a jeweler whose creations have been sold at Maui stores. She previously had a business raising butterflies for release at weddings and other special events.

"I may be a transplant, but I have lived here longer than anywhere else," she said. "This is my home."

Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.