By Dr. Jerri Nielsen
with Maryanne Vollers

Ice Bound, Part I Ice Bound Part II

For a few days the temperature warmed up enough for Big John to take me on a snowmobile ride out on the plateau. Now there was only a hint of twilight over the polar flats and the night sky was blazing with stars.

June 21, 1999: I am inserting a needle in my breast while Walt is pulling up on the syringe for suction during the first breast biopsy. From left are Walter Fischel, Lisa Lobe, me, and Bill Johnson.

For the first time in my life I saw the Southern Cross, the kite-shaped constellation that sailors use to guide them across southern oceans. We rode far out into the black plain and looked back at the twinkling lights surrounding the Dome. I was so glad to be outdoors again. You need the chill of winter to know the meaning of warmth. In some ways the feeling reminded me of winters in Ohio, where you spend autumn preparing for winter, and then the terrible cold hits. Only then can you feel good about curling up by a fire, wrapped in a comforter, to read a good, long book. I love to get into a warm bed from a cold room, or feel my back freezing while my face is burning from the fire. The contrasts were so much like that at the Pole. We traveled back and forth from the dark, frozen, lonely wasteland to our cozy society with its laughter and warmth and light bulbs.

When I opened my email Monday evening, I saw an answer to my prayers:

From: Kathy Miller
To: Jerri Nielsen
Date: 14 Jun. 99 23:09:11 +1200
Subject: help

Hi Jerri,
I am a medical oncologist who specializes in breast cancer at Indiana University. Your friend Dr. Lehman (Juergen) contacted me about your current situation. Of course I am concerned that this represents a primary breast cancer — as I am sure you are as well. I will speak with my breast surgeon and local anesthesiologists at our breast conference Thursday morning.

Overall I am not enthusiastic about the possibility of a local resection. I am not concerned that surgery at the station would cause further spread. I am more concerned about complications from the procedure. Also unless we could do a mastectomy and axillary node dissection I don't know that the surgery would be beneficial (in other words, removing only a portion of the tumor doesn't help us).

You are describing an aggressive, large tumor that we would not treat initially with surgery if I were seeing you here. After a needle biopsy confirmed the diagnosis we would proceed directly with chemotherapy to decrease the tumor size before surgery. I am worried about the pain in your arm and the emerging axillary adenopathy — this could become a much more significant problem before spring.

Kathy Miller

BIOPSY RESULTS

On Thursday, July 22, while Lisa and I were looking through her email, we spotted a message from a pathologist at the National Cancer Institute in Washington, D.C. While I stood over her shoulder, Lisa clicked it open and we eagerly began to read. Only a few sentences into the message, a technical discussion of staining and slides, the doctor wrote in passing, "these slides show carcinoma of the breast . . ."

For a moment I couldn't breathe. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach, and ice water was flushing through my veins. I held on to Lisa's shoulders, as a phrase kept running though my head: This is the way the world ends ... this is the way the world ends ... All of my mental exercises had not prepared me for this awful news, not when it was delivered like this, tossed casually into a correspondence between strangers. I felt like an eavesdropper at my own execution.

This is the way the world ends ... not with a bang, but a whimper . . .

Lisa put an arm around me.

"What a way to be told," she said.

I couldn't even speak to her. At that moment I was almost as upset about the way I had learned about my cancer as the cancer itself. Why didn't they write to me, the station physician? Why not have Kathy tell me? Lisa tried to console me, but I had a patient waiting to see me and excused myself.

The next thing I remember from that morning was seeing one of the carpenters lying on the cart in Biomed. While examining him I realized from the expression on his face that he could tell that something wasn't right with me. For once I couldn't summon up the impassive mask that I always wore when I saw my patients. There was no way I could hide my feelings from him, or any friend at the Pole. We were too connected by now, like cells in a simple organism. He deserved to know what was wrong.

"I just found out that I have cancer."

The patient got up from the bed and held the doctor.

From: Dad
To: Jerri Nielsen
Date: July 25, 1999 8:05 PM
Subject: From Daddy

Dear Duffy,

As you know, writing letters is not my bag and this one is really tough. I would like to tell you how much we love you, but I think you already know that. One thing you may not know is how often I think about the times we had when you were growing up. Bricker Farm, Duckcreek, the country club, SCUBA diving in the quarry, acrobatics, cheerleading, but most of all the times we spent talking and being together. Mom and I love you more than life itself and when we get you home we will take good care of you. Thank your friends for me for all the help they have given you, and I hope someday to be able to meet them.

Love you, Duff,
DAD

LET THE CHEMOTHERAPY BEGIN

Although I doubted chemotherapy would save my life, I agreed to start immediately. It was better than doing nothing. The plan was to begin weekly infusions of Taxol, a relatively new drug that had shown good results in shrinking large, fast-growing tumors like mine. Lisa and Comms Tom had figured out a way to set up a live videoconference with Kathy in Indianapolis so she could monitor the chemotherapy and be on hand in case anything went wrong.

Taxol's effect on the human body depends on the size of the dose and how long it is infused into the bloodstream. Kathy Miller prescribed an hour-long drip. Any shorter time would increase the risk of a dangerous allergic reaction. Longer infusions could cause serious myelosuppression — shutting down blood cell production in the bone marrow.

Unlike big-time American hospitals, Biomed didn't have special pumps to administer drugs at the prescribed rates, so I chose the next best thing: Big John. Kathy and her assistant, an amazing oncology nurse named LaTrice Haney, calculated the rate of drips per minute based on the type of IV lines we were going to use. Big practiced regulating the flow to complete the infusion on time. He also helped me measure the size of the mass right before chemo so that we could gauge any changes. We accomplished this in true polar fashion: I defined the edges with my fingers and Big traced them with a felt-tip marker. Then we took a green plastic ruler and measured the thing. It had grown since June, and was now 5.5 cm. by 4 cm., roughly the size of a hen's egg. In the arena of breast tumors, this was a heavyweight.

To administer the infusions, I had already assembled essentially the same group as the biopsy crew with the addition of Heidi Schernthanner, the heavy-equipment operator whom I trained to help with IVs and to keep track of medical materials. We called ourselves Club Med.

Welder Walt and Ken Lobe started the IVs, Big mixed the drugs and monitored the flows, Mike kept up communications with Comms Tom and Indianapolis, and Lisa and Liza operated the videocameras. We even had a mascot named Rover.

Rover was one of the little black Sony auto-tracking videocameras we had received in the airdrop. It could be programmed to follow movements without human guidance during the chemo sessions, and it sat on a pedestal in my bedroom, zooming and pivoting like a menacing little robot guard. Lisa, finding the camera too intimidating, gave it the cute nickname. Other members of the team added canine features, such as a red felt tongue and pointy ears made out of green silk leaves. It was hard to look at Rover without bursting into laughter, which was just what we needed as the conference drew closer. We all knew that if something went wrong — for instance, I had a bad reaction or went into shock — then it would be up to my friends to save my life. It was quite a responsibility for people without medical backgrounds.

On Friday, July 24, we set up the cameras and laid out the equipment and medications we would need. At 9:30 p.m. a video image from a clinic in steamy, summertime Indianapolis traveled across the Internet, bounced off a satellite skittering along the polar horizon, and appeared on the computer monitor on my desk. Kathy and LaTrice were easy to recognize from the pictures Kathy had attached in her email. Still, our first videoconference was disorienting. Mostly we saw them in profile as they peered into their own monitor, watching us watch them. The sound was delayed, like a badly dubbed foreign film, and our colleagues in America seemed to jump around the screen, like dancers caught in a disco strobe. I hate to think how we looked to them.

After introducing ourselves we got right to work. The chemotherapy began with a dose of Kytril, taken orally, to prevent nausea, followed by infusions of Decadron, a steroid, and Benadryl, an antihistamine, to minimize any allergic reaction to the Taxol. The drugs made me woozy, and I watched the rest of the procedure through one eye or the other — they wouldn't focus together. We were instructed to start the Taxol slowly for the first 10 minutes and watch carefully for a reaction. When none came, Big cranked up the flow.

The crew of the U.S. Air Force LC-130 Hercules that flew on Dr. Jerri Nielsen's rescue mission at the South Pole poses for a snapshot following the famed flight. AP/Fotopress

At about this point in the procedure, we lost our audio link to Indianapolis. Losing Comms was a familiar event in polar communications, but this time it put a scare in all of us. My team was standing by with epinephrine and other emergency medications in case I reacted adversely to the chemo, but they needed directions on administering them. I wouldn't be available.

Luckily, audio and video links come through on separate channels. We were able to maintain visual contact, but for the remainder of the session we had to scribble notes on pieces of paper and hold them up to the camera.

From my bed I dictated questions and Lisa would write them out for me: "What do we give after the Taxol?"

We could see Kathy and LaTrice squinting at their monitor, conferring, and then writing a reply. Lisa would read it back to me:

"Flush the IV tubing with saline for 15 minutes."

We'd pause for a few moments, then I'd have another question.

From: Jerri Nielsen
To: Kathy D. Miller
Date: July 24, 1999 4:27 AM
Subject: Re: whew

Dear Kathy,

Welcome to the Marx Brothers do chemotherapy at home!

It was a little rough there finding the "right stuff" but we got it. Now you see what the practice of medicine is like here. Usually, though, I don't have the "right stuff." I often have to make it or make do.

The chemo went well. It took 3 1/2 hours to run it in due to the IV. I had a little dysphoria. A feeling that I couldn't get comfortable but that could have been the tricky positional IV. My bed is in the hospital so I was able to be in my own nest for it. My best friend refused to leave and stayed up all night listening to me sleep, sure that I would stop breathing any minute. Such are friends at the Pole.

He said that he spent the night talking to me about adventure, sailing to South America in my brother's boat, traveling to Mongolia to see my friend in the Peace Corps, and things that would give me good dreams. Things that now, I guess, I will never do.

I woke up at peace. I think that I was relieved to finally have treatment but I feel such a sense of overwhelming loss. Is that normal? I have been through such hell in my life (you can imagine being a woman in medicine in the early '70s, a bad marriage with a horrible divorce, and more). I have always had such a positive and resilient nature that kept me fighting and coming back. But dying now is not what I had in mind.

---

From: Jerri Nielsen
To: Kathy D. Miller
Date: Sunday, August 1, 1999 8:17 AM
Subject: boat

Dear Kathy,

It really helped to have statistics. It made me much more at ease with the lump. Thank you for taking the time to compile them. I am one who really needs to know.

I have decided, after the statistics, that I am going to live so that I can circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat, as soon as I have recovered from therapy. It will really be a gas. I think that I will just live on the boat and go. I want to call my friends and have them visit me at different ports. First, I am going to South America, then who knows?

My friend from summer, Dorianne, has been to Japan twice, the Philippines once, New Mexico three times, and Oregon twice since she left the Ice in January! I am hoping to get done with my treatment in time to visit her in Japan before she leaves in December and then meet her in Belize for a big New Year's party she is throwing there in January. Then, I want to go see another girlfriend who is now living in Mongolia in the Peace Corps. Maybe I will go with Lisa. I was so very sad that I wasn't going to see the world like the rest of the Polies when I get off. Instead I am just going to go when I can, what the Hell?

So that is what I decided I want to live for.

I really think the "lump thing" is even smaller.

Fondly,

Jerri

---

From: Jerri Nielsen
To: Kathy D. Miller
Date: 5 Aug. 1999 21:41:39 +1200
Subject: checking in

Dear Kathy,

My tumor was originally 5 cm across and 4 cm down. Now it is 3 (down) by 3.5 (across) by 1.5 (deep). It is really hard to measure, though. The borders are very indistinct. Originally, I couldn't measure depth due to inability to find the bottom of it.

Fondly,

Jerri

POLAR DAWN

Early in August one of the meteorologists got on the All-Call and gleefully announced that there was a glow on the horizon: First light! I was feeling stronger than usual that day, so I decided to take a walk outside the Dome to see for myself. I added 20 pounds of clothing and chemical hand warmers to my indoor ensemble and slipped through the small wooden door that now served as the front entrance to the Dome. A steep corridor carved in the drifted snow led to the outer buildings. I looked up through the ice canyon and saw, directly overhead, the Milky Way looking like an explosion of diamonds, incredibly bright and close. A green aurora rolled and shimmered in the black sky beyond.

As the days passed, I began to rely on the escape fantasies my brother Scott created for me. In my mind, I could already be sailing around the globe, out on the fresh blue ocean. Just like when we were children sharing a bedroom in Ohio, Scott spun detailed stories of how we would travel together and where we would go:

From: Scott Cahill
To: Jerri Nielsen
Date: 04 Aug. 1999 08:53:04 -0400
Subject: Re: hello

Dear Duffy:

You are absolutely welcome to the boat when you get back. I will have her done & I think that it would be an excellent place to recoup. If you work at it, you can learn to sail in a couple of months. It will take longer before you can feel it. People have left for circumnavigations without ever having sailed before, but I think it is crazy. There are all kinds of books on the subject and I will teach you all that I know.

I think that you should live on & sail mine for a while before you buy a boat. Your ideas of what you want will change as you sail for a while. I hope that after you are settled we could go on a moderate cruise — maybe Bermuda — it is a good blue-water shakeout cruise. It is a wide-open passage — best sailed in the fall outside of Atlantic hurricane season. You could continue your treatments on the way over & we could fly back. We — or you — could then sail the boat back at a future date when we are ready. I have set her up to be sailed by a crew of two. In moderate weather, you could handle her alone. In heavy weather, it would be nice to have two on board.

I love you very much.

Scotty

After I began chemotherapy I tried to settle back into a normal routine. I saw patients and even tried to scrub down my little hospital. I could easily have justified devoting all my time to a cancer patient if she were someone else, but since I was the patient, whenever I attended to my own illness I felt guilty for neglecting my other work.

And then there was Pic. He first came to me with pain in his head and jaw which had begun during his travels in Africa, after his mishap with a Ugandan dentist. We both worked on his chronic sinus infections and his temporomandibular joint pain: I did massage and myofacial-release therapy and tried multiple medications, while he practiced yoga and relaxation techniques. Meanwhile his neck was hurting him. Next, he started having stomach and back pain. It was amusing to watch him try to cover up his legendary dietary indiscretions. Did he really think he could hide his jalapeno pepper pizza from me?

Soon after the airdrop, he developed severe pain in his hip. Although he could not remember an injury, he was clearly miserable and found it more difficult to work.

Pic being Pic, he would not let his duty slide to care for his health. He was compelled to make sure that this last piece of clean Earth was clear of hazardous material, and he would drag himself across the ice to do it. The day I took him off work for his disability, I found him riding the tractor outside the Dome in terrible temperatures.

FATIGUE WAS OVERWHELMING

Just as Kathy had predicted, the fatigue hit me like an anvil after the third chemo session. Everywhere I went, I felt like I was walking through neck-deep Jell-O. I still saw the sick folks, but I was behind on my paperwork and other projects.

It was getting hard to tell the difference between fatigue caused by the chemo and what was normal for the Pole at this time of year. It was the season of maximum toast, and everyone was feeling it. Along with the effects of sensory deprivation, we were experiencing physiologic altitudes of more than 11,000 feet for days at a time. Studies had shown that we were expected to lose some of our capacity for memory by the time we got off the Ice. We were all noticing it already. Big, who normally used a large and varied vocabulary in his conversation, was having trouble putting sentences together. He said he could visualize the words he wanted and knew what they meant, but he just couldn't bring them up. Donna told me that she now needed to write everything down in order to remember. The sensory deprivation and chronic hypoxia were also affecting our vision, and our tempers.

Dr. Jerri Nielsen holding silk flowers that were included in the emergency airdrop of vital medical and tele-conferencing equipment, chemotherapy drugs and other supplies. John Penney

Big John was now in frequent contact with my family. When they wanted to know how I "really" was doing, they wrote to Big. Big John always sent me copies of what he wrote about me. I could rarely do the same. My feelings for Big were better left unsaid. We had a painful understanding. Our relationship was one of the most profound that either of us would experience, although I knew it could never be a conventional love relationship. But I would gladly take the compromise of great friendship and understanding. As I wrote to Scotty:

The other person who loves the winter as much as I do is Big John. You would really like Big. He has ruined my relationships with guys forever. I will always be looking for someone like him. I will miss him, but I am so used to losing people I care about. He has been such a wonderful friend. I can't imagine being here facing my illness without someone who cares about me, who deeply cares. It has made so much difference. I can't do much for myself at times. Most people tire of caring for the sick, but he misses great parties to sit up and watch me breathe after my chemo. I could go on and on. He says that it makes him sad that he is so poor and has nothing to give to me, but he gives and gives all the time. I didn't come here to find a guy. That is why it seemed okay to have a married best friend — we could just like and respect each other and provide company. Now, I must say that it hurts, a bit.

For my first few weeks on Taxol, the tumor continued to shrink with each session. Then, for a while there was no change. But recently the mass area seemed different, and I wondered if it was starting to grow again. I took a few new measurements, and sure enough, the tumor appeared to be getting larger. Kathy didn't seem worried, however, explaining it might be just a function of our primitive measuring devices. We agreed to check it again before the next round of chemo.

From: Jerri Nielsen
To: Kathy D. Miller
Date: September 30, 1999 9:18 P.M.
Subject: new measurements

Dear Kathy,

THE THING IS A MONSTER!

4 cm tall

4 cm wide

1.5 cm deep

Does this mean that it is spreading through my body?

I am so afraid. Things have not seemed as good this week. I note that I am again thinking about death. It is probably because I am having a lot more pain again in my breast. It is like in April when it was growing very fast and the breast felt like it was expanding. The back and arm pain is more prominent. I am very sick to the stomach and feel like my liver hurts.

Fondly,
Jerri

Armed with this new information about the rapid growth of the tumor and my physical deterioration, Kathy Miller made two decisions. She told me it was time to stop the Taxol infusions and proceed with a different combination of chemotherapy drugs — the CMF cocktail. The new drugs, which had been included in the airdrop as a backup in case the Taxol didn't work, might arrest the cancer until I could get to a surgeon. And she was now urging NSF/ASA to evacuate me from the South Pole as soon as possible. NSF concurred, and Harry Mahar, the NSF official coordinating the rescue effort, emailed me with the news that my extraction would likely take place two and a half to three weeks from now, depending on the weather in McMurdo and the Pole. Since the first flight of the season usually arrived on October 25, I wondered if it was worth the risk just to get me home a week or so early, but my doctors and employers seemed to think my time was running out.

It is hard to describe how discouraging these new developments were to me and all the members of Club Med. We had all worked so hard and had been through so much together — the airdrop, the biopsies, the grueling hours of chemotherapy. For a while, when the tumor was shrinking, we felt like we were winning, that we were beating the enemy into submission, that we were in control. Now that the monster had come back bigger than ever, we wondered if it had all been for nothing. By going through it all I had probably bought myself time, but would it be enough? The pain in my back, my chronic cough, my lack of coordination and mental cloudiness were all symptoms that could mean the cancer had metastasized and spread throughout my body.

Big John, Lisa, and my closest friends tried to put a positive spin on the news: I'd be out of here soon. But if I turned quickly and caught them off-guard, I could catch the flicker of anguish in their eyes. It was sad to think that this great adventure might end badly, but by now I had moved beyond fear. As my father always said, "What will be, will be."

RESCUE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE
DR. KARL A. ERB, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF POLAR PROGRAMS
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Status of South Pole Medical Situation
October 5, 1999. The National Science Foundation has requested that the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard deploy to Antarctica and conduct a flight to the South Pole to bring out the physician at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The physician, Dr. Jerri Nielsen, has been carrying out her normal responsibilities since the U.S. Air Force airdrop of medical supplies in July. Her stateside physicians are now recommending to us that she be returned to the United States at the earliest safe opportunity. The onset of summer in Antarctica, with its gradual increase in sunlight and temperature, makes it feasible to evacuate Dr. Nielsen and to replace her with another physician. Two aircraft and three aircrews will depart from Stratton Air National Guard Base in Schenectady, N.Y., on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1999. They are expected to arrive at NSF's McMurdo Station in Antarctica on or around Oct. 12, where they will await favorable conditions to fly the roughly 800 miles to the Pole.

POLIES GET BUSY

Ordinarily, everyone at the Pole mobilized at the beginning of October to prepare for the station opening, traditionally scheduled for October 25. This year we knew the first flight would come sooner, and everyone stepped up the pace to get ready. Floyd and Ken started firing up furnaces and electric heaters out at Summer Camp and getting the Jamesways ready for summer residents. Big John coaxed the tractors and 'dozer into cold-weather service. Power Plant Thom, Tool Man Tim, and Ken Lobe worked 12-hour shifts grooming the 3-mile-long airplane skiway in minus 90 F. temperatures. They had to carve through the sastrugi and wind-hardened snowdrifts, pulling snow planes and drag lines behind the tractors. We also had to bulldoze a ramp down to the main Dome entrance and remove the snow canyon that was now 25 feet deep.

Everybody was working to swab out the station for the arrival of the next crew — cleaning their quarters, the upper galley, the pool hall and TV room, everything. I was determined to scrub down the walls and floor in Biomed, wash the linen, clean the drawers. Yubecca volunteered to help me, and we eventually got it done.

Packing for my early extraction was another tiresome and painful exercise in loss. I had to ask Big to help me, and he hated to pack even his own things. He was clearly unhappy, but I had to be sure I had everything I needed ready for the rescue flight, and I could no longer trust my memory. My books and personal possessions would have to be shipped back to the States.

Kathy had told me to bring enough chemotherapy drugs for another three sessions, in case my plane got stranded somewhere by bad weather. I also had to bring the Navy pathology jars with my cell samples, the slides, and some other items.

SPRINGTIME IN ANTARCTICA

A barrage of springtime storms arrived in Antarctica along with the rescue mission. Two LC-130s were launched from their base in New York state on October 6, arriving in Christchurch 4 days later. The extra plane, and 2 extra flight crews, were deployed in the event that another plane was needed for a search and rescue mission, and for backup in case of equipment failure or excessive delays.

High winds grounded the planes in New Zealand until October 14. McMurdo, the next stop, had been open to air traffic for weeks but was suffering from a spell of extreme cold temperatures. The rescue planes were able to land at McMurdo but were immediately grounded again. We had to wait for the temperatures there and at Pole to rise above minus 58 F., normally considered the lowest reading for a safe landing. As soon as conditions improved, one plane would leave for the Pole while the other stood by in MacTown.

Dr. Jerri Nielsen meets Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in March after Nielsen was named Irish American of the Year by Irish America magazine. AP

We were updated almost hourly on the status of the mission, and I tried to learn what I could about the crew that had come so far to help me. The pilot was Major George McAllister of the New York Air National Guard, who had a great deal of experience flying ski-equipped Hercules planes in the Antarctic. Colonel Graham Pritchard, the airborne-mission commander, was on board, as was Major Kimberly Terpening, a flight nurse and Gulf War veteran. The mission planning team had been led by Col. Edward L. Fleming, an expert in rescue operations and medevac. I was relieved that the crew of volunteers on this risky mission was so experienced. My greatest fear was that someone would get hurt or killed just trying to buy me a week or so of extra time.

I could almost justify the mission to myself because Pic was to be extracted with me. His hip problems had been getting worse, and I still couldn't find the cause of the pain in his limbs, back, and neck. I felt he needed to see a specialist as soon as possible, and this flight would be his ticket out.

Meanwhile, my brothers had flown to New Zealand. The plan was to sweep me through the hordes of waiting reporters, get me on a flight to the U.S., and take me straight to the hospital in Indianapolis and into the care of Kathy Miller. My parents would be waiting for me there.

On the morning of October 16, the weather was terrible but expected to be just barely warm enough to land. When we were told the plane had taken off from MacTown, Mike Masterman called us all to the galley to review the procedure for landing. He told us in no uncertain terms that we had only a few minutes to get everyone in and out of the plane. The longer it was on the ground, the greater the risk of a mechanical problem. There was no time for mistakes. I can barely remember what else was said at that meeting. As people stood up to leave, I saw the faces of my dear friends approaching me through a watery haze: Roo, Nick, Loree, Andy, Comms Tom. I couldn't really hear their voices, but I must have said something back to them, to tell them good-bye, to thank them for everything they meant to me. But in my mind I was already gone, suspended in deep water, drifting out to sea.

COMING IN FOR A LANDING

Big waited with me. We thought the plane would get boomeranged again, so both of us jumped when Comms Tom announced on the All-Call that the aircraft had radioed in Papa 3 — meaning it was 30 minutes out.

We pulled on the last layers of our ECW gear, and Big went outside to warm up the snowmobile. I had walked from Biomed to the skiway hundreds of times in the past 11 months, but today I was too frail to risk it. As I climbed on board behind Big, Lisa came up to say good-bye and give me a final hug. I had been so careful to keep my emotions under control through all my good-byes, but this was a hard one. She gave me a sweet, soft kiss on the cheek and pressed her face against mine.

"Take care of yourself," she said. "I'll catch up with you back in the world."

As soon as we cleared the entrance tunnel we were engulfed in a swirling ground blizzard, a total whiteout. Neither of us could imagine how a pilot could land in such terrible conditions. The temperature hovered around minus 60 F. Even if the Hercules could thread the needle and land on our skiway in zero visibility, there was always the danger that the aircraft's hydraulic systems would rupture or freeze and lock up the landing gears.

"He'll never make it," said Big. "He'll have to circle and turn back."

Suddenly we heard a noise rising above the howling wind. It was the roar of all four engines of an LC-130 powering in for a landing. We could hardly believe it was happening. Then the noise changed in pitch and grew louder as the pilot reversed the props. The plane was on the ground.

I turned to Big John. Every part of our bodies was layered against the cold, but I wanted to see him one last time. I pulled off my goggles.

"Let me see your eyes," I said. He pushed his goggles up on his forehead. We looked at each other for a moment and nothing more was said.

The plane was on the taxiway, and we knew we had only a few minutes to get everybody on board and disembark the arriving passengers. The engines were still cranking as we made our way up to the forward door. It swung open and down, and Hugh Cowan, the arriving doctor, hustled down the stairs. There was no time for greetings, but I was relieved to know another doctor would be on station and that he was a fellow Polie. Pic hobbled out to the flight line on crutches and Charlie got ready to help him board. First it was my turn. The stairway hung at least a yard above the ice, and there was no way I could climb it on my own. I grabbed a cable and tried to get my knee onto the step. Suddenly I felt Big John's arms around me, picking me up. He literally threw me into the plane, where I landed on my knees on the flight deck. When I turned around to wave good-bye, he was already gone.

From: John W. Penney
To: All
Date: October 16, 1999
Subject: Mission accomplished

Hello All:

Just wanted to let you all know that the Doc got out of here today. It was the earliest and coldest landing ever at the South Pole. We didn't think the plane would land. The wind was blowing at almost 20 knots, and visibility was poor.

She is very short of breath nowadays and gets dizzy easily. We stood around, and everyone said their last good-byes, even though we did not expect the plane to land. Well, land they did. I took the Doc by the arm and marched her out to the door and helped her up the steps.

When everyone and their gear were inside, the plane attempted to taxi. They couldn't, the engines were at full throttle and the plane wouldn't budge. They had to retract their skis, which had become frozen to the ice, and rest on the tires. They then put the skis back down on the ice and revved up their engines. This time they moved. The plane taxied out and went to the far end of the skiway. We could not see them, but we could hear them. As soon as we heard them turn around, they put the throttles to the fire wall. They were off the deck by the time they came into view in front of the Dome.

The plane did the normal go around. As they came over the Dome, the pilot waggled his wings, and they were off. I stood and watched it until it was out of sight. It took about 4 minutes for them to fly out of view. It was kind of weird, blowing snow and nasty on the ground, but as we watched the plane climb out, the sky above opened up and it was flying in the middle of a huge patch of blue sky and clouds.

---

Parts I-III reprinted from "Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole" by Dr. Jerri Nielsen with Maryanne Vollers. (c) 2001 by Dr. Jerri Nielsen. Published by Talk Miramax Books/Hyperion