THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 15, 1996 TAG: 9603130216
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THUMBS UP
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
When Betty Busciglio was asked about her reaction to the news that the Virginia Beach Jaycees had chosen her to receive its 1995 First Citizen Award, she gave a typically modest but direct answer.
``The word,'' she said, as she leveled her warm blue eyes on the questioner, ``is shock!''
If Busciglio was shocked at receiving the honor last week, no one who has worked with her on her many community projects over the years was.
Especially those involved with the American Cancer Society.
Since she and her husband, an executive with the Family Channel, moved here from New Jersey eight years ago, the Aberdeen, Scotland native has become closely associated with the charity.
She has served on the board for six years and is in her second year as president of the Virginia Beach Unit. She is also a board member of the Division CORE Team for Income Development and has been instrumental in two of the charity's major fund-raisers.
She was involved in starting the Discovery Shop, an upscale resale outlet at Hilltop whose proceeds go to the society, and has played a major role in the increasingly successful Relay for Life.
The annual 24-hour walk-a-thon raised more than $235,000 locally for the Cancer Society last year. ``We hope to top $300,000 this year,'' she said.
Her interest with cancer education and research is intensely personal. So is her interest in support for cancer victims. Busciglio is one of an ever-increasing number of long-term survivors of the dread disease.
More than a decade ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following a modified radical mastectomy, a year of chemotherapy and repeated cancer free checkups, she was declared free of the disease.
``I didn't know it at the time,'' she said, ``but I had been given only two to five years to live. There were a lot of lymph nodes involved, not just under my arms but in my neck as well.''
Nevertheless, she beat the odds.
``As of March 24, I'll be a 10-year survivor,'' she said proudly.
Many things came together in Busciglio's successful battle with the disease. She numbers faith, determination and being in the right place at the right time among them.
An accomplished cook, she was in the middle of teaching a course at the time the diagnosis was made. One of her students was an Indian doctor who took the classes because her children, who had been raised in this country, wouldn't eat her native dishes.
``She wanted to learn how to cook American food for them,'' Busciglio said. ``The night I told my students that I'd be taking some time off for surgery, she stayed after class, talked with me for a long time and asked if she could manage my case.'' Busciglio quickly agreed.
The student was an oncologist, a specialist who prescribes and administers the complex treatments needed to assure that the patient will remain cancer-free.
One of the things which Busciglio held firmly in her mind during the long year of chemotherapy was a picture from her older daughter's wedding reception. Taken shortly before her cancer was diagnosed, the picture showed her new son-in-law dancing a lively number with his grandmother.
``It was a wonderful picture and I just kept telling myself I'm going to have a picture like at my grandchild's wedding some day,'' she said.
That was before her grandchildren, now numbering four with a fifth due this spring, were even thought of.
These days, Busciglio appears the picture of health, but her dedication to the cause of finding a cure for cancer remains.
Not one to just lend her name to a charity or run its meetings, she is deeply involved in the Cancer Society's day to day work. As the volunteer information systems specialist she produces an amazing variety of fliers, invitations, newsletters on her home computer.
And when this year's Relay for Life kicks off on the evening of May 31, she'll be one of those who are front and center, taking the first lap around the track at Great Neck Middle School.
That's the lap that's reserved for people like Betty Busciglio: survivors who have beat cancer and want to make sure that others know that it can be done. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
Betty Busciglio, a breast cancer survivor, has served on the board
of the American Cancer Society for six years and is in her second
year as president of the Virginia Beach Unit.
by CNB