Jill’s House opens to patients this week

After six long years, it’s finally finished. Jill’s House, a home for out-of-town patients undergoing treatment at Bloomington’s Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute, officially welcomed its first residents Tuesday. The facility is named in honor of slain IU student Jill Behrman.\n“This started a long time ago when Bud and Peg Howard thought about it. They thought it was something that would be nice for us to be involved in and to work on,” said Eric Behrman, Jill’s father. “It’s also something very nice for the community to remember Jill by.”\nBud and Peg Howard were the driving force behind Jill’s House, which can hold 25 patients plus one caregiver for each patient. The Howards lost their teenage son Steve to cancer back in 1970, and their experiences during his treatment gave birth to the idea of Jill’s House.\n“We knew with the proton therapy the patients need a place to stay,” Peg Howard said. “I stayed about six weeks in New York. There was no facility for me to stay, so I had to stay in a hotel. It was very, very expensive. There was no place to fix food, you had to go out for all your meals. There was no facility to do laundry.”\nThe house is a cross between a hotel and a mansion, featuring four kitchens, laundry rooms, spacious sitting areas, a playground and a library. There’s also a children’s playroom complete with a giant flat screen TV, stuffed animals and stocked bookshelves. Each room has two double beds and a private bathroom.\nAccording to Executive Director Susan Dabkowski, donations primarily funded the creation of Jill’s House. While residents are asked for a donation of $30 per night, they need not pay if they are unable to do so.\n“We are not turning anyone away because of inability to pay,” she said.\nThe patients Jill’s House accommodates could range from senior citizens all the way down to children of 18 months. Dabkowski said the majority of inquiries the facility receives are from either pediatric patients or individuals suffering from prostate cancer. Three patients have moved in so far, and the house has 12 more reservations. Signs taped outside each room pay tribute to the individuals or organizations that funded it.\nThe residents are patients at MPRI and undergoing proton therapy, which is more exact than X-ray radiation. MPRI is only one of five institutions of its kind in the country, and the only one operating in the Midwest.\n“Proton therapy is a highly precise form of treatment for tumors that is extraordinarily good at protecting the healthy cells and healthy tissues around a tumor,” said Amanda Burnham, manager of marketing and development for MPRI.\nMPRI has been in operation since February 2004, and patients typically have to stay 8-10 weeks, Burnham said. She also said they have had landlords and hotels who offer discounts and shortened leases to patients, but nothing like Jill’s House.\n“Jill’s House is a long awaited, wonderful thing to help our patients have a home away from home,” Burnham said.\nWhen the Howards were laying the plans for Jill’s House, Jill Behrman was still missing. They decided naming it in her honor would be a way to keep her name in the public consciousness. \n“It could have been named any house, but about eight years ago when Jill was missing, from the time when she left on her bicycle ride and didn’t return, the whole community was looking for her,” said Eric Behrman. “And this gave us an opportunity to make something good out of the bad.”\nPeg Howard has devoted her life to fighting cancer since her son’s passing, and Jill’s House is the culmination of her work. She has spent years volunteering for the American Cancer Society, working with patients, and running support groups.\n“He was so brave in everything he did. He knew that the research he was undergoing was probably not going to save him but it was probably going to save somebody else,” Howard said. “It was that attitude that made me want to do something. I think he would be very proud of this house and what it stands for, and so would Jill.”