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A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole
Miramax Books
January 2001
On Sale: January 18, 2001
384 pages ISBN: 0786866845 EAN: 9780786866847 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
Jerri Nielsen was a forty-six-year-old doctor working in
Ohio when she made the decision to take a year's sabbatical
at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Antarctica, the most
remote and perilous place on Earth. The "Polies," as they
are known, live in almost total darkness for six months of
the year, in winter temperatures as low as 100 degrees below
zero--with no way in or out before the spring. During the long winter of 1999, Dr. Nielsen, solely
responsible for the mental and physical fitness of a team of
researchers, construction workers, and support staff,
discovered a lump in her breast. Consulting via email with
doctors in the United States, she performed a biopsy on
herself, and in July began chemotherapy treatments to ensure
her survival until condition permitted her rescue in
October. A daring rescue by the Air National Guard ensued,
who landed, dropped off a replacement physician, and minutes
later took off with Dr. Nielsen. This is Dr. Nielsen's own account of her experience at the
Pole, the sea change as she becomes "of the Ice," and her
realization that as she would rather be on Antarctica than
anywhere else on earth. It is also a thrilling adventure of
researchers and scientists embattled by a hostile
environment; a penetrating exploration of the dynamics of an
isolated, intensely connected community faced with
adversity; and, at its core, a powerfully moving drama of
love and loss, of one woman's voyage of self-discovery
through an extraordinary struggle for survival.
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