High-tech leg gives woman hope she'll dance one day

LAS VEGAS - Alicia Karau's dreams of being a dancer, singer, model, actress or network news anchorwoman didn't end in June when doctors amputated her right leg above the knee.

The native Nevadan and college junior believes she'll perform again one day thanks to the generosity of the public that raised $45,000 for a computer-controlled prosthetic leg, one of the first of its type.

Karau, 21, might not be "The Bionic Woman," but like the character portrayed in the 1970s' television show by Lindsay Wagner, she is athletic, blonde and attractive.

She overflows with optimism - despite twice surviving rare forms of cancer that threatened her life and cost her the limb.

"I absolutely will be onstage again, but I know it is going to take time," Karau said, her blue-green eyes widening with excitement.

"I still have all of my aspirations," she said. "And now I have my whole life ahead of me."

That future was in doubt in May 2003 after cancer had spread to her leg. She underwent months of chemotherapy and radiation, but doctors gave her an ultimatum. She could amputate the afflicted leg or die.

"I told them 'no' to the surgery," Karau said. "I was in complete denial so my response was purely on emotion. I just could not see myself living without a leg."

But, Karau said, when it sunk in she came to her senses and determined that "I would stay positive and I would be fine."

The clincher to having the surgery to remove her leg came after doctors told Karau of a highly technological prosthesis called the C-Leg that is being used to replace legs of soldiers wounded in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I looked at it on the Internet and was amazed to see how far technology has advanced in the area of artificial legs," she said.

Unlike old prosthetic devices, in which the artificial knee had to be locked and unlocked manually, the sensors and microprocessors in the C-Leg do that automatically for more fluid movement.

What Karau, a northern Nevadan, did not know - and did not learn until after her leg was amputated - was that the C-Leg costs $45,000 and that her health insurance company would not cover the expense.

Local businesses raised money. Fund-raisers were held. And the public donated thousands. All of which enabled Karau to get her C-Leg.

Karau, who is still learning how to walk on her new leg, gets around with the help of a cane and acknowledges she gets fatigued.

Still, Karau's recovery from surgery has been quick. Her family and other friends say that, given her ambition and many talents, they are not surprised to see her get back in the flow of things so soon after the amputation.

Alicia Karau began dancing at age 3. She excelled in ballet, tap and jazz.

Karau's potential career in entertainment blossomed when she was a teenager. She took up modeling and acting, appearing on a commercial for The Game Show Network.

But in 2002, while attending high school where she was a cheerleader, Karau was diagnosed with a malignant form of a combination of two rare cancers - synovial sarcoma and a peripheral nerve sheath tumor.

Karau tried to carry on as usual and, in June of that year, landed the female singing lead in the Western Nevada Musical Theatre Company's Carson City production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

That August, she moved to Las Vegas to attend UNLV as a broadcasting major after doctors gave her a clean bill of health.

Then, in October 2003, Karau discovered a lump in the leg - the cancer had returned. By December it had metastasized.

After four more months of chemotherapy, Karau was told that to save her life her leg would have to be removed. Surgeons in San Francisco amputated it just above the knee and removed a lump in her groin.

"I cannot tell you the number of times I have said to myself, 'Why me?'" said Karau, who every day massages her stub to minimize swelling, does sit-ups and other exercises and practices walking on her C-Leg.

As for dancing, her family and other friends say they will not be surprised to see Karau, artificial leg and all, performing on stage some day.

"She probably will not be performing in a Las Vegas showroom, but there is more to dance than physicality," said her mother, Laurel Chabot, a former professional dancer and a dance instructor in Florida.

"There will be things Alicia will be limited in doing like intricate ballet moves and jumps. But she will be able to do jazz and could have a great future in musical theater, where the moves are not so overly taxing."

Recent medical tests have determined that Karau is cancer-free.

She says one of her goals is to one day visit people just after they have under-gone amputations to encourage them that they, too, can have a quality life after such surgery.

"I know what I have gone through so I can understand how others feel," Karau said.