When she found one for the immunotherapy drug at Providence Cancer Centre, she spent three months bombarding the hospital with calls and emails — until one day she was finally accepted.
“I made a call, spoke to a guy running it,” she said.
“He humoured me at the beginning and then all the negatives started coming — ‘the trial’s full,’ ‘you’re not in our medical system’.
“I just ignored that. I think I rang up one day and left a message quoting the Hippocratic oath. I tried anything and everything. I’m still gobsmacked they didn’t just block me.
“If you want to save your own life it’s a tough job.”
“THE story of how a mum beat terminal cancer thanks to her dogged determination to get a place on a foreign clinical trial is to become a Hollywood movie.”
The rights to Julie’s book, Patient 71, has been picked up by the filmmakers responsible for the hit Australian Oscar nominated movie, Lion, starring Nicole Kidman.
Not only did she not qualify as she wasn’t American, the 70-person trial was full.”
Mrs Randall didn’t take no for an answer and after months of calls and emails, plus raising $20,000 for medical insurance, she was finally handed the lifeline place.
She was motivated by the promise she made to daughters Morgan, 24, and Remi, 21
“I want to spread the word of hope,” she said.
Julie Randall, the Sydney mother-of-two was diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma, with the cancer already having spread throughout her entire body.
By the time it was discovered the disease had reached her brain, liver, lung, pancreas and lymph nodes. Doctors told her it wasn't curable.
They offered to remove the tumour, dose her up with chemotherapy and potentially buy more time - but she would only get nine months at best.
'I didn't want my babies to watch me die': Mother told she had just nine months to live after terminal brain cancer diagnosis is CURED after five-year miracle treatment
'A lot of people thought I was grabbing at straws. I was going to be a lab rat. I'd rather be a lab rat than a dead rat,'
‘Please don’t put me in the ground, I’m claustrophobic’ I sobbed
‘I am happy and healthy and all my organs have healed,’ I sang out loud, as I pounded the streets.
I also made a vision board with pictures of places I planned to visit – and of kids playing, to represent my future grandchildren. It was a devastating blow when I was told I wasn’t eligible for any clinical trials in Australia. But I didn’t let that stop me and we scoured the internet for trials overseas.