High school football coach, 60, dies after chemotherapy supply runs out...as ... trends now
A Milwaukee football coach has become the latest victim of the devastating drug shortage crisis threatening the lives of patients with diabetes, cancer and deadly infections.
Jeff Bolle, 60, a high school counselor and football coach, succumbed to bile duct cancer last December after doctors ran out of his vital chemotherapy drug, cisplatin.
Bolle had surgery and four rounds of chemotherapy to remove a grapefruit-sized tumor in his bile duct next to his liver.
Doctors said he needed two more to kill all remaining cancer cells - but Mr Bolle was told the cancer center where he was treated did not have the drug.
Instead, he languished for months without cancer-slowing medication.
Jeff Bolle, pictured left next to his wife Connie, died six months after doctors informed him that his cancer-slowing drug cisplatin was unavailable due to an ongoing shortage. He passed away that same year having not received his remaining two chemo treatments
His story comes as thousands of patients in the US struggle to access medication amid a protracted shortage that has affected more than just chemotherapy drugs, but also diabetes medications, antibiotics, and anesthetics.
Before he died, Mr Bolle and his wife Connie shared their story publicly in the hope of garnering attention for the issue and to pressure federal action to fix it.
A recent survey of the nation’s 29 largest cancer centers found that 72 percent had an insufficient supply of the chemo drug carboplatin and 59 percent are still seeing a shortage of cisplatin. Both drugs are frequently used to treat a wide variety of cancers.
The shortfall has meant hundreds of thousands of patients are not getting the treatments they need.
Mr Bolle’s fight with cancer begain in October 2022, when he felt unusual back pain that he initially chalked up to heavy weight lifting. He tried hot and cold compresses and took a break from exercising heavily, but the pain did not go away.
Mr Bolle told Today last year: ‘I was taking my Tylenol at night just to be comfortable enough to sleep. I realized that I just need to get this checked to know what it was.’
Blood tests performed by his primary care doctors showed elevated enzymes in his liver, and a subsequent MRI uncovered a grapefruit-sized tumor nestled between his liver and kidney. He was diagnosed with bile duct cancer, which kills about 83 percent of its victims.
Mr Bolle said: ‘My doctor said it was the type of cancerous growth you’ll never really get into remission. Their thoughts were that they could get most of the tumor out and they could use chemo … to hold it off.’
Mr Bolle kept coaching the high school football team for as long as he could physically walk up and down the sidelines with his walker. He was remembered by his team as a dedicated coach who led with kindness and compassion
And they did at first, until they were told doctors could not get their hands
