Nielsen, 47, had been waiting for a plane for more than three months, ever since she discovered a small lump in her breast. In a risky midwinter polar flyover, an Air Force crew in July dropped biopsy equipment and a supply of chemotherapy drugs; she performed the biopsy on herself, made and photographed slide samples and e-mailed the results to doctors in the States. The exact diagnosis has not been made public, but a source at the National Science Foundation, which runs the polar station, said that after she completed one round of chemotherapy her doctors advised her to begin a second; on Sept. 29, NSF officials asked the Air Force to attempt an evacuation “at the earliest safe opportunity.” (Most years, the planes take up their station at McMurdo on Oct. 25.) Nielsen’s mother described her daughter as weak, worried and bald from the drugs she’s been taking.
But help is not far off now; after spending just 22 minutes on the ground, the plane took off again with Nielsen on board for McMurdo. From there she was flown to New Zealand for a short stopover before heading home to the States. The NSF refused to say where she would be treated. (Nielsen, who is from Ohio, was recently divorced and has three teenage children.) One encouraging note comes from a large study, published last year, of women who, like Nielsen, had chemotherapy for breast cancer before surgery, reversing the usual course of treatment. It didn’t affect their survival rate–but because the chemotherapy shrank the tumor first, fewer of them needed to have an entire breast removed. As for the colleagues she’s leaving behind, her replacement flew down on the same plane that took her out. As it happens, he’s a man.
