Following directions from a stateside oncologist, a welder and a maintenance man on the base learned to administer the IVs. A heavy equipment mechanic mixed the potentially deadly drugs and monitored the IV drips. Others at the station videotaped the sessions and worked to keep the communications lines open so doctors 9,000 miles away could give advice if something went wrong.
By the time an Air National Guard LC-130 made the coldest-ever landing at the Pole, with temperatures hovering around 60 degrees below zero, on October 16, Nielsen had to be carried to the plane. Once she was in America, the NSF slipped her past to Indiana University Hospital. There she had a lumpectomy (later she was forced to have a full mastectomy) and more chemotherapy.
Behind her on the Pole, she left the closest friends she had ever made - a group she rightly calls modern-day heroes. Unfortunately, "Ice Bound," Nielsen's account of the ordeal, has a rushes and almost amateur quality to it. It reads in places like it's product of a vanity publisher.