(Nat sound of Russ reading Aly’s to-do list.)
(Fitzpatrick)
Russ Wolff read his daughter Aly Wolff’s to-do list she made after she was diagnosed with cancer.
After starting college at U-W Oshkosh,what doctors thought was stomach aches from dining hall food turned out to be tumors on Aly’s liver.
Sheila Wolff, Aly’s mom, says that the tumors were too big to be surgically removed, so the family searched for a live liver donor.
(“Everybody was being tested to be her donor. I just remember the lady at the transplant unit said you have a very popular daughter. Because we are getting overloaded with calls of people that want to donate their liver to her.”) (“We got the news that the cancer spread to her lungs and the transplant was canceled.” “Then we got on the clinical trial and just kept trying but it never shrunk.”)
(Fitzpatrick)
The Wolff’s went to a doctor in Chicago who was willing to try a high-risk surgery.
(“So she went into surgery and when he got in there it was like— it just wasn’t going to work.””After we found out that that surgery didn’t work her two aunts came down, and we wanted to talk about something else. So we started to think about this fundraiser that she wanted to do.” “It was such a wonderful distraction over such a horrible day.”)
(Fitzpatrick)
Sheila Wolff said that Aly had a big hand in planning the event, from how the tables were decorated to the date of the event.
Aly’s Honky Tonk Hustle was scheduled for the third weekend in May, but one month before, Aly’s health worsened and she was in the hospital.
(“She just determined that she wanted to get out of there.” “Yah, she said legally you can’t keep me here, and so she’s going home.” “And so we did” )
(Fitzpatrick)
On April 22nd, Aly passed away, yet her charity lives on.
[TAKE SOT
NAME:NAT SOUND OF AUCTION
DURATION:0’03”]
(Fitzpatrick)
One of Aly’s friends from college, Ariel Fix, helps plan Aly’s Honky Tonk Hustle.
Fix says after their seventh event, the Aly Wolf Foundation will top one-million-dollars in donations.
(“So the first year we made 91-thousand. We’re like okay, we’re not going to make 91-thousand again. Let’s shoot for eighty. And then we topped it. We made 125 the second year. And so we just keep topping that pervious year’s total. It’s just been great.”)
(Fitzpatrick)
Fix, who also works at the marketing and communications for U-W Health,says The Aly Wolff foundation funds research at the U-W Carbone Cancer research center.
(“The only reason that we are able to give this cancer treatment to the patients that we treat is the Aly Wolff foundation.”)
(Fitzpatrick)
The developing treatment uses a new drug and an existing tumor-fighting drug together to combat neuroendocrine tumors in what Dr. Abbott says is the first trial of its kind in the United States.
(“Really that’s the goal is at the very very least get the tumors to stay the same size, if not shrink them. And then the holy grail, of course, is to get them to go away completely.”)
(Fitzpatrick)
Eleven patients have been testing the drugs and results of the trials won’t be known until they have been finished and published.
Yet fundraising continues as a year-round effort. December marks Aly’s 26th birthday, and the charity that started on her to-do list just 6 years ago raised over 15-thousand-dollars this past week to keep fighting for a cure.
Meghan Fitzpatrick, N-C-C News
