ROCKFORD, Ill. – In 2017, John Chase was ready to retire and spend more time with family, in his small vineyard and on the stage.
Only about a year later, he would face an advanced cancer diagnosis.
Chase spent 15 years as a child protection investigator, investigating potential child abuse and neglect in Illinois, eventually moving up into licensing childcare providers, until he retired as the Associate Deputy for Foster Care and Agency Licensing in the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
“It’s a tough job — you’re helping kids and families go through hard things,” he said. “That’s partially why I started acting, it helped my well-being.”
Chase has been in plays and musicals around Rockford for the past 30 years and has worked with the Timber Lake Playhouse in Mount Carroll, Ill., for the past 15 years.
Also conscious of the environment, Chase and his wife Beth looked for ways to offset their carbon footprint. In 2008, they joined the Northern Illinois Wine Growers and in 2011 they planted a vineyard on their five-acre property in Mount Morris, Ill.
His passion for and experience with wine led him to work part-time at a friend’s winery in 2018. During that time, he developed a lingering cough.
“I thought I had a stubborn case of bronchitis,” he said. “I remember wearing a mask to meet my first grandchild that year because I didn’t want to get her sick.”
Chase made an appointment to get checked out and was first seen by a nurse practitioner at UW Health, which was then SwedishAmerican. When the cough persisted, he made an appointment with his primary care physician, Dr. Emily Rogers, who ordered an X-ray of Chase’s lungs. Those results prompted Rogers to order a bronchoscopy, which is a medical procedure that involves inserting a tube into the nose or mouth to allow the care team to examine a patient’s lungs.
The results were clear: Chase had a tumor in his lung, and in December 2018 he was diagnosed with stage 3B non-small cell lung cancer.
Chase and his wife canceled vacation plans to visit Costa Rica so he could begin treatment. Dr. Nameer Mardini, his medical oncologist at what is now UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center Rockford, started Chase on a 35-session radiation therapy regimen at the end of January 2019, along with weekly chemotherapy.
“It’s devastating,” Chase said. “Not just the diagnosis, but the side effects were hard to deal with as well.”
Then, Chase began immunotherapy, which worked well at preventing the spread of the cancer, and he started to audition for plays again, appearing in a production of “Newsies.”
About a year later, in 2020, he experienced more than one setback.
“In a routine PET scan, we learned that John’s lung cancer metastasized to his lymph nodes, which means the immunotherapy was no longer an effective therapy,” Mardini said.
Chase was also now facing a global pandemic with a compromised immune system.
“We had to isolate so much during COVID,” he said. “Beth and I recorded songs at home, from Broadway to hymns to other old favorites, as a form of therapy not just for our mental health but to help keep my lungs strong.”
When immunotherapy was no longer an option, Mardini ordered a genetic test of Chase’s tumor to determine if anything in his unique genes could point to another treatment option.
“We found he had a mutation of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase gene, or ALK gene,” Mardini said. “ALK+ non-small cell lung cancer accounts for approximately 4 to 5% of all non-small cell lung cancer cases in both white and Asian populations. It is one of several key genetic mutations we assess when determining the best treatment approach for this type of cancer. Identifying mutations like this is crucial for tailoring therapy, ensuring patients receive the most effective targeted treatment options.”
Chase, who had smoked for more than a decade when he was in the National Guard 30 years before his diagnosis, was glad to have any new information that could lead to more treatment options, he said.
Mardini consulted with the Precision Medicine Molecular Tumor Board, a group of expert clinicians, pathologists and scientists who gather to discuss and analyze tumor genotypes and molecular abnormalities to recommend patient-specific targeted therapies. This led to Chase receiving an oral targeted therapy called alectinib, which is a medication specifically designed to treat lung cancer that is positive for the ALK gene mutation. Chase was prescribed a dose specific to his needs.
This precision medicine has prevented the cancer from advancing, allowing Chase to continue to live his life and spend time doing what he loves, according to Mardini.
While oral targeted therapy can still create some symptoms like weight gain, fatigue and numbness or tingling in the hands and feet, his UW Health care team has incorporated a multi-disciplinary approach, including nutrition experts and physical therapists over the years.
Chase, now 65, is grateful to have found a therapy that has been so effective for so long, he said. Chase continues to tend to his 80-vine, seven-varietal vineyard, making and bottling the wine at home with his wife. In the last year, he was also in four productions, including “A Christmas Carol,” “Footloose” and “Jekyll & Hyde.”
He also gets to continue to be a father to his three daughters who live in Minnesota, New Jersey and Florida, and a grandfather to his four grandchildren.
“My grandpa was born in 1876, so he died when I was only 3 years old,” he said. “But I cherish those first memories I have with him, and I am glad I get to make memories for my grandkids whenever I can.”
Reflecting on what motivated him to keep looking for therapy options, Chase thought back to when he was first diagnosed.
“A kind nurse told me to ‘fight like hell,’ but I never saw this as a fight,” he said. “I saw a lot of dysfunction in my career, but I also saw a lot of love. This was a dysfunction of my body and I love my body, so when I looked at it that way, I saw a path forward to work through this dysfunction.”
