Can you imagine performing a biopsy on your self? What about diagnosing your self with breast cancer? Can you grasp what it must have been like to watch your tumor grow and not be able to get treatments? Dr. Jerri Nielsen lived through this as a physician at the South Pole, but passed away recently from breast cancer 10 years after she diagnosed herself.
You may have read her book that documented her ordeal, “Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole”. Or you may have seen the CBS Movie starring the fantastic Susan Sarandon. She was an adventurous woman working at a remote scientific station at the South Pole at age 47 in 1999.
When people die from cancer their obituaries or eulogies often state that they fought bravely against the disease. Dr. Jerri was the extreme fighter against the disease. Not many will have to go to the extremes she endured.
The breast cancer community mourns the loss of the toughest survivor ever, Dr. Jerri Nielsen-Fitzgerald.