Florida dancer doesn't let arm amputation affect her career goals

From the Pensacola News-Journal:

Jessica Jensen dreams of dancing on Broadway.

And the 25-year-old Pensacola resident is letting nothing, including the loss of her left hand to cancer, stand in her way.

Leggy and slender, Jensen has the poise and grace of a professional dancer. When she moves across a stage using muscles honed by years of training in ballet and modern dance, it takes a moment to notice that something’s missing.

That’s exactly how Jensen wants it.

“My dancing doesn’t come from my hands,” she said. “It comes from my core.”

Locals may recognize Jensen from her years of performing with Ballet Pensacola or from various Pensacola Little Theatre productions. But Tuesday, she gained some national attention when she appeared on the FOX television series, “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Though Jensen was eliminated during the audition process, her audition clip was featured on the show.

“It was a huge life experience,” said Jensen, who traveled to Atlanta in June to try out for the show. “There is nothing like being in a room with 500 other dancers, doing what you’ve only dreamed about.”

She said she knew the judges would notice her for her technique, “but they’d really notice me for my arm.”

Jensen noticed a bump in the palm of her dominant left hand while she was a student at the University of West Florida.

“It looked kind of like a wart,” she said. “I was a student, a single mom and I waited tables. I felt like I didn’t have time to go to the doctor.”

Jensen graduated from UWF in May 2007. In June, she went to the Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze to have the painful growth excised.

Days later, she received a devastating diagnosis. The seemingly harmless bump was an epithelial sarcoma, a malignant soft tissue tumor. Her hand would have to be amputated to prevent the cancer from spreading.

“I refused to believe it,” Jensen said. “There was no way I was losing my hand.”
Jerry Ahillen, artistic director at Pensacola Little Theatre, has known Jensen for years. He said the diagnosis was a shock to everyone.

“It was so horrible,” he said. “She had to decide between amputation or death.”

The cancer was so rare that only four hospitals in the country offered treatment. At Shands at the University of Florida in Gainesville, surgeons fought to save her hand, but ultimately, Jensen chose amputation.

“When it came down to an uncertain future with chemo and radiation or being a healthy mom with one hand, the choice was simple,” she said.

Simple, but not easy.

Life after amputationSince the surgery in August 2007, Jensen has had to relearn how to write, apply makeup and “all those things you take for granted.”

“But I’ve adapted and I’ve learned to ask for help when I need it,” she said. “That was probably the hardest part for me.”

It helps to laugh at herself. When people make awkward comments, Jensen turns them into punch lines.

“I was at dinner recently, and our server was loaded down with plates. He said, ‘Don’t you wish you had three hands?’ and I said, ‘No, but I wish I had two!’”

Beating cancer reignited her passion for dancing.

“I asked myself what I truly wanted to do and who I wanted to be,” Jensen said. “And I wanted to be a dancer.”

Two weeks after surgery, she was back in dance class. Within six weeks, she performed in the musical “Anything Goes” at Pensacola Junior College.

“It was my physical therapy,” she said. “It was my way of proving to myself that I could still do it.”

These days, Jensen’s energy seems limitless. She reels off her five jobs: sales associate at Lee Tracy Shoes & Apparel on Pensacola Beach and Intracoastal Outfitters in Pensacola; dance instructor at Ballet Pensacola and Dorothy’s Dance Plus; waitress at a friend’s restaurant in Gulf Shores, Ala.

“And then there’s my dancing,” she said, grinning.

Richard Steinart, artistic director at Ballet Pensacola, said he was thrilled to bring Jensen on board as the modern dance instructor and choreographer.

“Jessica is proving to be sort of an unstoppable force,” he said. “I have to say that I’ve seen her grow as an artist through this struggle. When she dances, she dances with her whole body. You don’t see what’s missing.”

Jensen plans to audition again for “So You Think You Can Dance” in the spring. This month, local audiences can catch her as Columbia in the PLT production of “The Rocky Horror Show.”

Her goal is to leave a legacy in the dancing world, no matter how small.
“If I can show people that they can rise above tragedy, that will be enough,” said Jensen, adding, “But I will dance on Broadway one day. Just watch me.”