The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

Her daughter Elsie doesn’t know her mother has died since she is still at the institute. In the following chapter Skloot describes the medical context of the cells and where they are traveling to for experimentation.

Henrietta Lacks is not a common household name, yet in the scientific and medical world it has become one of the most important and talked names of the century. Up until the time that this book was written, very few people knew of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells contributed to modern science, but Rebecca Skloot aimed to change this. Eventually Skloot was able to reach Henrietta’s remaining family and through them she was able to tell the story of not only the importance of the HeLa cells but also Henrietta’s life.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr.

Henrietta’s younger daughter, Deborah learned many things about her mother when she was confronted by Rebecca Skloot who was doing research on Henrietta’s life and treatment when she was sick. She read a book about HeLa cells and it mentioned her mother and her death. Deborah also managed to get ahold of Henrietta’s medical records and through those, she found her older sister, Elsie’s, location, but came to find out that she had passed away. Deborah learned that her mother’s cells were being cloned. One of the relieving facts that Deborah was told was that the cancer was not heritable and it was unlikely

Once the doctors told Henrietta’s husband, Day, that he could not bring the children to see Henrietta anymore. Day then let the children play right outside of her hospital room window, “She’d pull herself out of bed, press her hands and face to the glass and watch her children play on the lawn” (66). Being able to merely see her children playing brought enough strength to Henrietta to get out of bed even in her sickly state of health. Even as painful as her times in the hospital is having her family just outside of her window brings Henrietta joy and

HeLa cells have an important role in understanding cells and how they work. HeLa cells have often be compared or mixed with other cells so that they can be researched longer. The benefit of the rate of the cells that they produce and how they are “immortal”, make it easier for doctors and scientists to study longer and compare to or mix with things such as cancer, vaccines and stuff like

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, begins by sharing Henrietta Lack’s journey of becoming the dehumanized HeLa cell. Henrietta was a poor, black woman who grew up in the era of institutionalized racism, which created no way for her to become educated and therefore, unable to further herself or her family. Skloot shows how Henrietta’s race dictated her life by leaving her with no choice in hospital, no chance in understanding her treatment, and no identity to her own ‘immortal’ cells.

Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was fascinated by Henrietta and her cells and wanted to tell the story of her life. Lacks never got much credit for her contribution to science and Skloot wanted to share the huge impact her cells gave to medical research. However, Skloot needed contacts to Henrietta’s family in order to get the facts about her life. She did not realize exactly how much she was about to learn. When Skloot finally got in contact with the family she learned they were very skeptical about giving out information of Henrietta.

She arrived at John Hopkins hospital get treated for cancer but the surgeon decided to cut out samples of her cells along with the healthy cells as well. She never granted permission for any of the actions they proceeded. The director of research at the hospital related to tissue culture, George Gey, found a outstanding difference of the behavior of cells removed from her body. They were different than his other collections. The cells were placed in the culture, which showed rapid growth and doubled everyday. They were named HeLa cells. They had done a lot of medical research in the past, which led up up to curing many

Henrietta Lacks was an African American women that was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. Henrietta Lacks was born unto Eliza and Johnny Pleasant. At some point in time she changed her name from Loretta to Henrietta but her family is uncertain into how. Her mother died while giving birth to her tenth child in 1924. After the passing of his late wife, Henrietta’s father felt unable to handle the children, so he took them all to Clover, Virginia. In Clover, Virginia is where her father gave the children to relatives. At the age of 4, Henrietta was sent to live with her grandfather, Tommy Lacks, in a log cabin. This log cabin that she was sent to live in with her grandfather had been the slave quarters of a white ancestor’s plantation. At this time Henrietta Lacks shared a room with her 9 year-old first cousin, David Lacks.

During Henrietta's stay in hospital, her physician sent cells of her tumor to the analysis to the laboratory. It appeared that the cells became called on an acronym of the first and last name of Henrietta Lacks,

Henrietta went back to her usual life and did not seem sick from the radiation. She lived with Day and her children, during the night her and Sadie her cousin would sneak out and go dancing. Sadie tells Skloot about Henrietta's personality, and how she was fun, generous and hard-working. Henrietta was very accurate about her physical appearance, especially her nails by always keeping them covered with fresh red polish. When she had her fifth child, she could no longer handle Elsie so he committed her to Crownsville Hospital for the Negro Insane but this ended up devastating Henrietta, and she visited her every week. Henrietta kept her cancer a secret from everyone until she had x-ray therapy, which required her to go to Hopkins every day for

Henrietta Lacks was a “mother of five who died of cervical cancer at only thirty-one years of age” (Gabbay). When she passed away the doctors at John Hopkins asked her husband,

Henrietta’s children all donated blood so their mother could be with them for a little while longer.

Racial ambiguities such as this were quite common for the time, so much, so it became known as the Jim Crowe Era. Jim Crowe defined African Americans quality of life.3 The anti-black Jim Crowe Laws were not abolished until the late-1960’s.3 Henrietta and other citizens of color were damned at birth. Society treated them as second class citizens. Under these circumstances, following in her family’s footsteps, Henrietta began to work on the tobacco plantation as a farmer.2 Then at the young age of 14, she gave birth to her first child, Lawrence, who was fathered by her cousin, Day Lacks. Four years later Henrietta had a second child, Elsie, also with her cousin Day.2 Ms. Lacks and her newly formed family continued to live in Clover until 1941 when they relocated for work; specifically, work created by the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. Historically WWII is a tragedy although in Henrietta’s time the jobs created as an effect had a positive impact on poor citizens financially.2 However, nearly a decade later she decided to go to John Hopkins hospital for treatment of a “knot” on her womb (shortly after the birth of her fifth child) where Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer.2 Ms. Lacks’ cancer was treated aggressively and swiftly. Sadly, she did not survive the