This was a wonderful, true life story, of a woman who chose to “winter over” as the doctor at the South Pole in 1999. The South Pole in the winter consists of approximately six months of complete darkness and temperatures as low as 100 degrees below zero. It is called “wintering over” because once you determine to stay there for the winter there are several months where there is no chance to leave. The temperatures are too cold for airplanes to come and go.
Dr. Nielsen takes this job at a turning point in her life where she is looking for something different than her usual job in Ohio. Most of the crew who was staying in the South Pole were researchers and construction workers as they were working on the structure there that winter. Everyone lived in a Dome type structure that acted as a windbreak for the buildings and pathways inside. As I will most likely never have a chance to go to Antarctica or the South Pole I very much enjoyed hearing about life there.
Dr. Nielsen had to learn to do things she had grown accustomed to nurses doing and to using equipment and supplies that they had available there. During this time she discovered a lump in her breast and did a biopsy on herself to discover it was breast cancer. She was able to train some of the other staff that were there to assist her and began giving herself treatments over guidance that she got from doctors over email and video conference before she was evacuated out. Ice Bound was a story of adventure and bravery and I enjoyed it very much.
10/08/2009 at 11:08 pm Permalink
Sarah, I am so excited to be reading your book blog! You always are so on top of it and we often have similar tastes…as in this book, I want to read it sometime- you own it?