Wisconsin high school football coach, unable to receive chemotherapy due to shortage, dies at 60

Connie Bolle sometimes wonders if her husband, Jeff Bolle, 60, would still be alive if things had been different last spring.

After being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, the high school football coach and advisor began chemotherapy in 2023, but had to abruptly stop it when the drug he received, cisplatin, became more hard to find due to a national shortage of chemotherapy drugs.

“I keep asking myself, ‘What if we had gotten cisplatin?’ Could this have slowed down his cancer? she told TODAY.com. “Would he have been able to train even more? Would he have been stronger? Would he have felt better? … It’s always a second guess.”

While battling stage 4 cancer, Jeff Bolle continued to coach high school football for one final season. What a season it was as his team won the state championship.

In 2022, Jeff Bolle of Milwaukee was diagnosed with bile duct cancer, which has a dismal long-term survival rate. At the time, doctors hoped surgery and chemotherapy could prolong his life. He was in good health before his diagnosis, which made everyone optimistic.

He underwent surgery and four rounds of chemotherapy before the chemotherapy shortage stopped his treatment in May 2023 – two rounds fewer.

As the months passed and his cancer progressed uncontrollably, Jeff Bolle became increasingly ill. At the end of September 2023, doctors realized “there was really nothing else they could do, which was difficult to hear,” recalls Connie Bolle. There was no immunotherapy. There was no further chemotherapy.

Jeff Bolle died on December 29, 2023, seven months after losing access to his chemotherapy drugs.

Last summer, Jeff Bolle shared his story with TODAY.com to raise awareness about the chemotherapy shortage. He also shared his desire to coach at least one more season of football. He succeeded – and it was even sweeter than he could have imagined.

“Marquette University High School ended up winning the state championship in division one football, and it wasn’t predicted that they would be the only one (to win),” Connie Bolle said. “Jeff was in every game.”

Stage 4 cancer diagnosis

When Jeff Bolle felt a twinge in his back in October 2022, he thought he had pulled a muscle while exercising. But later that year, he was diagnosed with stage 4 bile duct cancer.

He underwent surgery in which doctors removed most of the tumor, then began immunotherapy and chemotherapy, even though he knew he would likely never be cured.

“My doctor said it was the type of cancerous growth that you’ll never really get into remission for,” Jeff Bolle told TODAY in 2023. “Their thoughts were that they could eliminate most of the tumor and they could use chemotherapy… to hold it back. disabled.”

The Bolles understood this. Yet it was devastating when Jeff Bolle stopped his treatment due to chemotherapy shortages.

“He was never able to (re)take cisplatin,” explains Connie Bolle. “His cancer continued to grow and his bile ducts were compromised because the cancer was straining them even more. He was getting really, really sick. It was horrible.”

On a few occasions, Jeff Bolle was unable to obtain imaging of his cancer due to lack of agents used in these procedures.

Although he felt too weak to work as a counselor, Jeff Bolle continued to coach football. Before he got sick, he rode his motorcycle to training, wearing sleeveless shirts to show off his biceps. He would often go into the weight room with the players and challenge them to bench presses. Even when he was sick, Jeff Bolle continued to check in with his players at least several times a week and during games.

Eventually, he needed a wheelchair to attend games and sat on the sidelines, but he coached defensive backs as long as he could. Regardless, he was still evaluating the game film afterward. In fact, Connie Bolls remembers that during a stay in the intensive care unit, he brought his laptop to score a football game.

Connie Bolle says she thinks he lived to finish this season.

“He knew how important it was to these high school students,” she said. “Some of the older people had been traveling with Jeff for four years.”

The team continued to win and finished at the state championship in November.

“I don’t know how Jeff did it because he could barely stand up honestly. At that point he probably weighed about 140 pounds,” says Connie Bolle. “The cold was just intense and he was walking up and down the sideline with his walker.”

Shortage of chemotherapy

Last year, cancer patients, like Jeff Bolle, and oncologists were faced with sad news: Many drugs and chemotherapy agents used in oncology imaging had become increasingly difficult to find.

The most serious shortages were of the chemotherapy drugs carboplatin and cisplatin, often used in incurable cancers, Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, told TODAY.com in 2023.

But cancer drug shortages are nothing new.

“What we are experiencing now is actually the latest in a series of waves of shortages going back a decade,” Mark Fleury, Ph.D., who works in policy development and emerging science at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. , tells TODAY.com.

“We have many drugs that never really left shortages and some that go in and out (of shortages).”

Last summer, NBC News reported that 14 drugs used in cancer treatment were hard to find. As of April 2024, the United States Food and Drug Administration website indicates that 15 oncologic agents are currently in shortage.

Asked about the status of the chemotherapy shortage, FDA spokesperson Chanapa Tantibanchachai shared an emailed statement with TODAY.com that said:

“The FDA recognizes the potential impact that lack of availability of certain products may have on healthcare providers and patients. Although the agency does not manufacture drugs and cannot require a drug company to make a drug, make more drugs, or impose requirements on a drug company to whom it chooses to sell its product (among legal purchasers) , the public should be assured that FDA is working closely with many manufacturers and others in the supply chain to understand, mitigate, and prevent or reduce the impact of intermittent or reduced availability of certain products.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf told NBC News in May 2023 that the main reason for the shortage of chemotherapy products is that there are not enough profits in the production of these drugs, including many are generic and do not have a patent. “A number of companies go bankrupt or have quality issues because of difficulty investing in their technology,” Califf said.

About an hour before Jeff Bolle died of stage 4 bile duct cancer, his dog, Kenzie, jumped on his bed to lie next to him. Courtesy of Jeff and Connie Bolle

Although carboplatin and cisplatin are “still listed as being in short supply,” Fleury says that last year the FDA authorized imports of cisplatin, which helped fill that shortage, and the drugs are now being produced more widely in the United States.

“We’re not seeing the type of shortage that we’ve been seeing,” Fleury says. “We call it a shortage, but… patients are receiving their medications. »

How chemotherapy drug shortages affect cancer patients

Cancer patients have felt the shortages. An American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network survey released in December found that 10 percent of all cancer patients were affected, but “the shortages were not felt in the same way,” Fleury says.

For example, people on Medicaid have had a tougher time, with 22% reporting that a shortage of cancer medications has affected their treatment. Some reported difficulty finding painkillers or other therapies that are not directly used to treat their cancer but are nonetheless important, he notes.

“People just didn’t know whether or not they would get their next treatment, or whether the dose was going to be cut in half,” Fleury says. “These are drugs…that really are the backbone (of cancer care) and, in some cases, have quite high efficacy.” And if they’re not available, you’re entering uncharted territory.

While patients struggled with a high “mental toll,” they also faced “logistical tolls,” with some patients traveling by car to find treatment, he said.

“There are patients today who need help,” adds Fleury. “We need to find a way to better manage the crisis we find ourselves in, but we also need to address some of the underlying causes that keep us in this constant state of crisis. »

Lawmakers have taken some steps to address this problem. While many bills often offer short-term solutions, the Senate Finance Committee has “gone deep” to address ongoing shortages, Fleury says.

“The government has an important role to play in solving this problem,” says Fleury. “(But) that doesn’t mean the private sector can’t do it.”

A lasting impact

On December 14, 2023, Jeff Bolle was in hospice care at his home. Connie Bolle knew he was nearing the end on Dec. 28, when he agreed to stay in a first-floor hospital bed because he was too weak to make it to their second-floor room. He died the following day.

“He only spent one night there,” she says. “It was the sign of defeat.”

At his funeral, his players shared what Jeff Bolle meant to them.

“They said such amazing things about the strength, determination and perseverance (that they learned) from Jeff, as well as the kindness, love and compassion,” she says.

Connie Bolle thinks her husband would be touched to learn of the impact he had on his students. She also thinks he would be proud that his story raised awareness about the shortage of cancer treatments.

“He really cared that other people weren’t getting these chemotherapy drugs,” she says. “It would still be sad today if people were still faced with this.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com