The Geographic Cure

This is a chapter title in a book I just finished reading, Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole by Dr. Jerri Nielsen with Maryanne Vollers. This is the second of two books loaned to the Chittum family by good friend, Barbara Steinhaus, and tells the story of Dr. Nielsen’s battle with cancer as she served as the only doctor to the 40 people who stayed over the winter of 1999 at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station.

Shortly after the onset of winter at the Pole, when the station is absolutely isolated because no flights can land there for about 8 months due to the extreme weather conditions, Dr. Nielsen discovered a lump in her breast and suspected cancer. She was forced to perform a needle biopsy on herself in order to get tissue to verify diagnosis and to administer chemotherapy to herself, with the help of others on base whom she trained, in order to begin treatment until she could leave.

The first chapter of the book, the one entitled “The Geographic Cure”, details what led to Dr. Nielsen’s decision to serve at the South Pole. Nielsen states, “I believe in geographic cures – they allow you to throw all your cards in the air and see where they land, then pick them back up and deal them again. I was ready for a new deal.”

That feeling she expressed struck a chord with me. There have been times in my life when I felt the same thing. I would hope for a chance to throw my cards in the air just to see in what new place they would land. Sometimes I resisted; other times I did not and grabbed for the new.

Have you ever felt that way? How did you deal with it? Did you succumb to the siren call of the new and different? Or, did you stay where you were?