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Just a whirlwind week after Swisher answered an online call for mothers raising children in Alaska, she was filmed in Kotzebue by a camera crew and then on a plane to Chicago for a taping of the show.

Swisher was in Anchorage on Oct. 6 and had just finished with a chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. Because the treatment made her miss her favorite television show, "Ugly Betty," she watched it online.

Afterward, she accidentally clicked on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" icon and decided to see what some upcoming topics were.

"I like to watch her every now and then," Swisher said.

There was a notice calling for women who were raising children in Alaska on the Web site. It said to respond if interested in appearing on the show.

On a whim, she filled out the online application.

"I just filled that out thinking there's no way they're going to call me," Swisher said. "Never in my wildest dreams."

She spent about 30 minutes filling out the application, and then everything she had typed was lost when unexpectedly. After it happened a second time, she quit for the day.

The next day she thought she'd give it one more try. This time it worked.

Still, she never figured she'd get a call back because of the notice that popped up afterward saying the show gets so many solicitations that people will only get a response if producers are interested.

Well, they were interested.

Swisher's husband, Eric, got a call on his cell phone that day.

"I thought it was somebody from work messing with me," said Eric Swisher, a lieutenant at the Kotzebue Police Department. "Then she kept talking."

The agent then called Swisher, where she was staying with her sister, in Anchorage. The agent asked for pictures of her family, then setup a phone interview the next day.

"She said, 'We're interviewing a whole bunch of women all over the world,'" Swisher said.

The day after the interview the agent called back with disappointing news - the producers were looking for a Native couple. Swisher's husband is white.

Swisher arranged an interview with her brother and sister-in-law and then quickly forgot about the whole ordeal.

Later, the agent called her back.

"We would like you to appear on the Oprah show," the agent told her.

"I was like, 'Are you kidding?"' a still-amazed Swisher said.

Swisher's story was mostly about living 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle, raising two daughters, Kaija, 8, and Ahlana, 4, in the same two-bedroom house where she and her family of 11 grew up. About how the sun doesn't peak above the horizon from mid-November until late December and where it takes 15 minutes to bundle up her daughters before school because of the cold.

Her itinerary was to arrive in Chicago on Oct. 16, where a limo would take her to the hotel. A limo would take her to the studio where the show is taped Oct. 17.

She wanted to portray her Inupiaq heritage because she was told she's the first Eskimo to appear on the show.

"The Oprah Winfrey Show" featuring Swisher as a guest is scheduled to air today.