BALTIMORE – The engineer evacuated from a South Pole research station is recovering well from her stroke, her doctor said Friday.

Renee-Nicole Douceur, who traveled to Johns Hopkins Hospital this week for treatment, had a minor to moderate stroke, but tests did not find any tumors, according to Dr. Paul Nyquist. She is regaining her vision, and her speech is improving.

“Overall, I think she’s going to make a full recovery and that’s attributed to her, and the fact she’s trying so hard, which is a key thing in recovery,” Nyquist said. “She did a lot of her recovery on her own. She sought out ways to challenge her vision and get input from physicians outside the continent. “

Douceur was evacuated two months after she began experiencing vision, language and memory problems while working as station manager at the National Science Foundation’s South Pole research station. The 58-year-old nuclear engineer from Seabrook, N.H., was coordinating an emergency air drop at the station when her vision faltered, she said. “I knew something went wrong when I couldn’t see half the paperwork in front of me,” she said.

Despite being stuck at the South Pole during the eight-month winter period when there are just 49 people at the station and there aren’t regular flights, she wasn’t afraid. “I wasn’t scared at all,” she said. “My personality is to try to stay cool. I never expected adversity.”

 

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