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Woods: Two-Year Wait for SCIG; Guilt Over Gatekept Access

Day 3 · 6:45:44 · Shawn Buckley · Julie Woods · Crystal Denomme

  • ⏳ Utah doctor recommended subcutaneous immune globulin two years earlier; Canada only started it seven weeks ago.
  • 📉 Delay allowed significant progression of her condition that earlier treatment might have prevented.
  • 😢 She feels guilt because most CanRise19 members still cannot access these heavily gatekept therapies.

Long-delayed immunotherapy arrives too late for many Canadian injured.

← Julie Woods Sworn: Lab-Confirmed No Prior COVID | Woods: College Athlete Felled by Paresthesia After Second Pfizer →

Transcript

Shawn Buckley · 6:45:44

Because I— we'll get into it. But you, you're starting a new treatment. And when we spoke, you had kind of been bumped up to a larger dose yesterday and we weren't sure if you'd be okay.

Julie Woods · 6:45:56

Yes, it's been a very rough morning. The side effects are honestly the most intense they have ever been, but I would not miss this opportunity for the world.

Shawn Buckley · 6:46:08

Okay, well, we, we appreciate that. Can you share with us what you are experiencing today for some of them?

Julie Woods · 6:46:14

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, the nausea is pretty bad, um, to be honest. I was sick this morning from the side effects, um, and I get severe headaches from the treatments and am not able to think straight. So more so than usual, I'm experiencing like the brain fog, memory issues. Thought patterns are very difficult to hold on to.

Crystal Denomme · 6:46:49

That's a bit of just—.

Shawn Buckley · 6:46:50

We'll be very careful as we go together, but you, you undertook a treatment yesterday. This— the initials are SCIG, which is a— it's a, an intravenous treatment that—.

Julie Woods · 6:47:03

Yes, so it's a subcutaneous immune globulin is the long form of it. So it's an immune form of immunotherapy that I was just able to start approximately 7 weeks ago. Although, as we'll probably get into in more detail. This therapy was recommended by my doctor in Utah 2 years ago for me, and it's taken this long to get access to the treatment in Canada. And unfortunately, as a result, my condition has progressed significantly.

Shawn Buckley · 6:47:40

Right. And I mean, we're there now, so we will get there again. But so if you had gotten this treatment earlier, you would not have deteriorated as much as you have.

Julie Woods · 6:47:50

That is the belief.

Crystal Denomme · 6:47:51

Yes.

Shawn Buckley · 6:47:52

Yeah.

Shawn Buckley · 6:47:53

So, and I don't think it will shock most people that if, if somebody is deteriorating, that maybe if you help them, that you'll have better outcomes. And when we were talking, um, not today, but on, on an earlier occasion, you actually even expressed to me guilt that you were getting this treatment? And can you share with us why you would feel guilty after waiting 2 years to be able to access this?

Julie Woods · 6:48:21

Yeah, absolutely. So unfortunately, many Canadians experience not only difficulty but an impossibility of accessing these immunotherapies in Canada. As many as my colleagues have testified, these treatments are very, very heavily gatekept in Canada, and it is next to impossible to access them. So although I know that there's many other people out there like me who could benefit from these therapies and who would have been more likely to benefit from these therapies years ago, they're not able to access them. So although it did take a long time for me, I am incredibly lucky because there are the majority of our members at CanRise19 that don't have their conditions diagnosed and they're not able to access these treatments.

Shawn Buckley · 6:49:28

Okay, so let's— I'm just going to now introduce you to the inquiry, but You're 29 and you've spoken about CANRICE 19. You're a co-founder of CANRICE 19. And I will ask you later about CANRICE 19. You're working on a master's degree in counseling psychology. You were a recreational athlete. You played basketball, volleyball. You were a long-distance runner, badminton. You were on the women's volleyball team in college.