Nielsen teleconferenced with medical personnel in the United States, and had to operate on herself in order to extract tissue samples for analysis.
A military plane was later dispatched to the pole to airdrop equipment and medications.
Her condition remained life-threatening, and the first plane to land at the station in the spring was sent several weeks earlier than planned, despite adverse weather conditions, to take her to the U.S.
as soon as possible.
Her ordeal attracted a great amount of attention from the media, and Nielsen later wrote an autobiographical book recounting her story.The cancer went into remission, but recurred seven years later, eventually causing her death in 2009 from brain metastatic disease, eleven years after initial diagnosis.