The Unsinkable Betty Jane
By Pat Lawrence
A Woman's View
October 2005
At forty five, Betty Puskar says, “I thought the Donna Fargo song, I’m the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA was my theme song.” A happy, healthy housewife who doted on her family, was involved in her daughters school activities and loved to entertain, Betty embraced the wonderful life she had been given. She kept in close contact with her mother and eight brothers and sisters. As the wife of a successful entrepreneur, money wasn’t a problem, but she still liked to sew her own clothes and do her own decorating. Betty was putting on makeup and talking on the phone when she saw the strange lump in the mirror. Within days, doctors confirmed breast cancer. Not fully comprehending, “I had never even heard of anyone having breast cancer”, she went to a Halloween party the night she got the news. In 1985 Betty didn’t know the diagnosis of stage II breast cancer could easily turn into a death sentence.
There were no cancer treatment centers in West Virginia. Though the technology, surgical techniques and chemotherapies of the mid 1980’s have been dramatically improved, Betty received the best possible care available at the time from the cancer research specialists of M.D Anderson Hospital in Houston. Still, treatments were harsh. The modified tissue saving surgeries of today had not been developed. Stage II breast cancer called for radical mastectomy. The chemotherapy was powerful, the experimental dosage, heavy and more than had ever been administered. Men and women with various types of cancer received their toxic IV’s sitting together. Betty says, “We were all so sick we could barely hold our heads up. We worried about it, afraid we would just drop our head and fall over and embarrass ourselves. That’s what we worried about- being embarrassed.”
Betty lost weight, hair and strength. She endured the dark, foggy months of debilitating chemotherapy and the realization that her marriage was over. “I had a lot of time to think.” She thought about the friends she’d made at M.D Anderson who had not survived their diagnosis, the women in West Virginia without resources or the option of flying to Houston, and her doctor’s parting suggestion to do what she could to get breast cancer care in her home state.
She got better. She told her doctor to make her 30 year follow up appointment. She discovered there were many things she could do on her own and she built a new life. A cancer survivor with the means and inclination for philanthropy, Betty had been invited to serve on the board for a new West Virginia Cancer Center. “I wanted to do something about breast cancer, and suggested mobile units for mammograms. But, a doctor explained there was no place for women to go once they were diagnosed. So, I said, ‘OK, let’s build a breast cancer center’.”
Today, the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center in Morgantown is providing comprehensive, all-encompassing breast care that provides the best available expertise, educational tools and technology for prevention, detection and treatment of breast cancer. “It’s a woman’s center-the doctors, administrators and technicians are all women. We have a new branch at Cheat and have started evening hours twice a week. About 18,000 women will receive center services this year and thousands of women benefit from cancer screenings performed by primary care providers trained by the cancer center,” Betty says with satisfaction. “It is just exactly what I had in mind.”
The woman who once addressed a group as “the most ignorant woman in the state world because I never had a breast cancer check up, I was too busy to have breast cancer, and almost stole my daughter’s opportunity to have a mother and my grandson’s chance to have a grandmother” speaks knowledgeably in public and in private about breast cancer.
She has followed her initial million dollar check to build the breast cancer center with annual support for the Betty Puskar Futures Golf Classic LPGA Golf Tournament, which has raised over $500,000 for the Center. She also lends her name and enthusiasm to the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center Soccer Invitational and sponsors the local Relay for Life.
A traditional wife who didn’t go out alone, she says, “Now I travel all over the world by myself!” Because of her deep involvement in the center, Betty reached out personally to many of the women who came for help. She has years of memories about women who fought breast cancer. ““I’ve heard many sad stories, but also many happy endings.” Betty still participates in two studies at M.D Anderson, and never misses a checkup. The redhead with the indomitable spirit has been called “the First Lady of Morgantown”. She says, “I say my prayers, but I don’t know that there is anything I would change about my life. I have been so lucky.”
Betty Jane Howard Puskar, ‘The ‘Happiest Girl in the Whole USA’, is still singing her theme song.
For more information about the diagnostic, educational and surgical services provided by the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center for Women at West Virginia University’s Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center in Morgantown, call (304) 293-8012.
Copyright © 2005-2006
A Woman's View. All rights reserved. Used with permission.