DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710030661

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG 

DATELINE: STAFF WRITER  VIRGINIA BEACH      LENGTH:   70 lines

BUBBA HOUSE SAFE HAVEN FOR CANCER PATIENTS

Few residents of the Point O'Woods neighborhood noticed when Leon and Reba Alston unpacked their van and moved into a small house on West Plantation Road six weeks ago.

To all appearances, the Alstons are the kind of people who would blend right in to the 30-year-old Great Neck subdivision.

But the Alstons were only temporary residents.

The Manteo, N.C., couple are among the first guests to stay at Bubba House, a guest home for patients - undergoing treatment at Virginia Beach General Hospital's Radiation Oncology Center - and their families.

``We've got all the comforts of home here,'' said Reba Alston, whose 68-year-old husband has been undergoing six weeks of radiation treatment for inoperable lung cancer. ``It's just like being at home, really.''

There is more than a little irony in the Alstons' stay on West Plantation.

Because of earlier resistance from some of the neighbors with whom the Alstons have so much in common, it's a home that almost never came to be.

The house is named for Bubba Nicklin, the 32-year-old owner of Bubba's Beach Club, who died in 1995 after a three-year battle with cancer.

During his final illness, Nicklin became concerned about those who had long drives for treatment. He worried, too, about family members spending long hours at the bedsides of their seriously ill loved ones. His dream was to provide a comfortable place where they could stay.

After Bubba's death, his father, Joe, his sister, B.J., and dozens of Bubba's friends went to work to make his dream come true. It was not a dream that all in Point O'Woods shared.

Last February, representatives of the civic league went before the City Council to protest the Nicklins' plan to open a guest house in their neighborhood. They expressed concerns about parking, traffic, medical waste and the financial stability of the non-profit foundation the Nicklins had organized to support the house. Eventually council gave a go-ahead to the project, a decision that many Point O'Woods residents have come to accept.

That decision meant that Leon Alston, who had continued to receive medical care from Virginia Beach doctors long after moving from his former home in Kings Grant in the 1970s, would be spared a four-hour daily round trip at a time that he was in pain from his illness and weak from the treatment.

``When they told us that radiation was the only answer, we didn't even stop to think about how we'd do it,'' Reba Alston said. Fortunately, somebody else did. Cindy Allen, manager of the radiation oncology department, put them in touch with B.J. Nicklin.

Instead of a three-hour daily commute, Nicklin offered them the option of a comfortable home just minutes from the hospital. That was on a Friday. The following Monday, the Alstons moved into Bubba House and Leon's treatments began.

This Thursday, the retired Navy man had his last dose of radiation therapy. By this afternoon they will be on their way home.

``It's been wonderful to have this house,'' Reba Alston said. ``It was like a blessing from heaven that just walked out to us.''

As for the neighbors, many didn't even notice that they were there.

``I hadn't realized there were guests in the house,'' said Sally Frohlich, president of the civic league that had opposed Bubba House.

Apparently there were some who did. ``A lot of people waved when they went by,'' Leon Alston said. ILLUSTRATION: PHILIP HOLMAN photos

B.J. Nicklin, left, executive director of The Bubba Cancer

Foundation, says goodbye to Reba Alston at the Bubba House in the

Point O'Woods neighborhood of Virginia Beach. Alston and her

husband, Leon, who had treatment at Virginia Beach General Hospital,

stayed six weeks.

Leon Alston and his wife, Reba, live in Manteo, N.C., and made use

of the Bubba House during his treatment for inoperable lung cancer.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu