If you look closely, you might find some similarities between Karen Freimund Wills and the title character she’ll play in “Mame†at the Lincoln Community Playhouse this weekend.
Mame is a New York socialite, the embodiment of pre-prohibition America. Her opulence and attitude is Gatsby-esque until she's faced with the challenge of raising her late brother’s prepubescent son — a role she initially is ill-prepared to handle. Later, she loses her wealth during the stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression and spends the next two decades rebuilding her wealth while raising that boy into a man.
The challenges that come with such sudden lifestyle and socioeconomic changes are humbling and character building. They make for a vastly entertaining, humorous and self-deprecating main character and a reminder that we’re often pulled from our comfort zones by tasks we think are too overwhelming or out of our skill sets.
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The ultimate lesson is that God never presents a challenge that’s too big to be handled, and that through adversity and determination, something more deeply meaningful can be forged.
No one knows this better than Freimund Wills — or Auntie Mame.
It’s fitting that Freimund Wills’ first song in "Mame" is called “It’s Today,†which serves as a reminder to appreciate the day because the next is never guaranteed.
For 20 years, the 48-year-old wife, mother of two teenagers and program coordinator for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Student Program Council was juggling all of her work and home obligations while starring in various acting and dancing endeavors throughout Lincoln’s theater community.
Tomorrow seemed inevitable.
That moment
And then, in May 2017, while preparing for a show, she thought she pulled a groin muscle during a simple dance move. A few days later, she noticed a lump on her abdomen near the injury and took the precaution of having it checked out.
The initial diagnosis was a hernia, but tests conducted on the lump, would eventually cause her worst fears to be realized.
Damn cancer.
Long story short, it was a rare case of something called low-grade mucin-producing appendix cancer. There are fewer than 500 cases of this in America each year, she said. It was so rare, a team of doctors didn’t know what it was in the beginning.
What complicated matters was the mucin, an amber-colored mucous that had filled her abdominal cavity. Determining where it was coming from was the challenge. And after removing her appendix and right ovary, she still was dealing with it.
Three weeks later, she had what she refers to as “the mother of all surgeries,†a 12-hour ordeal when doctors removed her spleen, gall bladder, left ovary, omentum, portions of her pancreas, uterus, and diaphragm, and 40% of her bowels.
They also extracted more than five pounds of mucin before trying a new experimental technique called "hot chemotherapy." Essentially, surgeons inserted the chemicals into her exposed abdominal cavity, raised her temperature to about 102 degrees and rocked her back and forth to ensure that it penetrated every part of her abdomen. After a couple of hours, they opened her again and extracted the chemicals.
“I remember driving to the hospital that morning and my husband saying 'this is like driving you to an organized car crash' because of what they were going to do to me,†Freimund Wills said. “The first thing I said to him when I woke up was 'Mack truck.'
“I felt like I got slammed by a Mack truck.â€
An already tiny woman of 120 pounds was even tinier after the surgery. She weighed less than 100 pounds and the removal of so many organs forced her into a far more restrictive diet.
“I was nauseated a lot,†she remembered.
Starting over
And that was only part of the problem. When the recovery staff in the hospital asked her to get up to walk, she found that her right leg was completely numb and lifeless.
The retractors used in surgery had pinched a nerve that rendered her right leg useless. There were great odds that she might never again walk without a limp, let alone step on the stage to do what had always been considered her gift.
“I had to go through months of physical therapy just to learn how to walk again,†she said.
Physical therapist Troy Goetsch asked what her goal was at the outset of her treatment. Freimund Wills decided to aim high — well beyond what most might have aspired to accomplish.
“I wanted to walk, and I also wanted to dance,†she told him. “’You have to get me dancing again.’ I was going to work my ass off to make sure I did.â€
She started off three days a week, using a walker before graduating to a cane. Once there was a foundation, Goetsch, who has trained high-level athletes all of his professional life, began adopting exercises that might be used by a skilled ballerina.
He built up her inner thighs and hip flexors. He adapted her physical therapy to dancing and, in just a few months, had built her strength to the point that she was able to be a part of the chorus for the Playhouse’s production of “Mamma Mia,†last May.
“It was hard,†she said. “There was a lot of high-energy jumping. I was in the back on a lot of stuff … but that was the goal. I wanted to be back on stage.â€
The comeback
The right leg still isn’t perfect. There is still some numbness, times when she continues to be reminded about her struggles. She can live with that. Life is about compromises and trade-offs. She got what she wanted.
Her life is as close to being back to the way it was before the surgery. Husband Matt Wills, an architect in town, continues to cycle at least one 100-mile jaunt a month (his streak is up to 89 straight months), while son Talley (16) and daughter Liem (13) have also been bitten by the theater bug.
And when the curtain is raised for “Mame†on Friday, it will mark Freimund Wills’ official return to the spotlight, her first starring role since her world was interrupted by the cancer.
“This is a powerhouse role,†said Morrie Enders, executive director of the Lincoln Community Playhouse and decade-long friend to Freimund Wills. “You have to have stamina to do it. She does. She’s back. This is planting the flag in Antarctica or on the moon that she is back.â€
As easily as it could be sloughed off with a shrug of the shoulders — that this is just another performance — that won’t happen this time. This woman who has been on the stage for 40 Playhouse productions, choreographed at least two dozen others, no longer takes anything for granted.
“This is very special for me and my family,†she said.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7391 or psangimino@journalstar.com. On Twitter @psangimino.