Initially the doctors found nothing wrong, but after Henrietta returned to Hopkins several times, a doctor ordered an X-ray and found a mass blocking her urethra. Sometime after her course of treatment ended, Henrietta began to feel aches in her abdomen.
#The immortal life of henrietta lacks chapter summary skin
Unfortunately, the radiation had a gruesome side effect: it burned the skin of her torso black. The initial radium treatment had shrunk the tumor, and subsequent X-ray treatments caused the tumor to disappear entirely. Henrietta’s cancer, meanwhile, seemed to be responding well to the radiation. Suddenly Gey had an inexhaustible supply of human cells on which to conduct experiments. Henrietta’s cells, however-dubbed “HeLa” by Gey’s lab technician-grew at a constant rate, doubling every 24 hours. Growing human cells in “culture”-i.e., in test tubes in the lab-had been an elusive advance for scientific researchers most human cells lasted a few days then died. The surgeon performing the initial treatment, without telling Henrietta, excised two slivers of tissue from her tumor for a researcher at Hopkins named George Gey. The tumor proved malignant, and Henrietta began to undergo radiation treatments-which, at the time, consisted of radium plaques placed directly on the tumor. Her doctor took a sample of the lump for a biopsy. In 1951, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Hospital after discovering a lump on her cervix. (Sonny), Deborah, and Joe (later Zakariyya)-the last in 1950. (Elsie would later be institutionalized.)ĭay and Henrietta were married in 1941, and shortly thereafter, they moved to Turner Station, a booming industrial neighborhood in Baltimore. Four years later, she had a second child by him named Lucile Elsie, whom everyone called Elsie and who evidenced traits of a developmental disability. At fourteen, she gave birth to her first child, a son named Lawrence the father was her cousin, David “Day” Lacks.
Loretta Pleasant, called Henrietta, was born in 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia, and raised in a small town in Virginia called Clover. In the course of her reporting, Skloot became close with Deborah Lacks, Henrietta Lacks’s daughter, and much of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is devoted to Deborah’s struggles with her mother’s absence and scientific legacy. The author of the book, science reporter Rebecca Skloot, spent 10 years researching Henrietta Lacks, her family, and the scientific advances her indefatigable cells made possible. Broadway Books.1-Page Summary 1-Page Book Summary of The Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksĪ massive bestseller when it was published in 2010 and the basis for an HBO miniseries of the same name, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a young African-American woman killed by a particularly vicious form of cancer, and her incredible cancer cells, which opened up entirely new directions in scientific research due to their “immortality”-their capacity to grow rapidly and unstoppably outside of her body. All participants of the story except Deborah died and Rebecca goes to show the book to the daughter of Henrietta (Skloot, 2011, p. In chapter 38 Rebecca finishes the research about Henrietta Lacks. The investigation is continued only by Rebecca (Skloot, 2011, p.
She has high level of sugar in blood and high blood pressure. In chapter 37 Deborah learns that she is ill and she needs to avoid stress. In chapter 36 theological discussions with Gary continue and Deborah understands that Henrietta is immortal because of her contribution to medicine (Skloot, 2011, p. She considers the cells of her mother and the information about Elsie to be the burden (Skloot, 2011, p. As a religious person, she is afraid of cloning. In chapter 35 Deborah talks to Gary about her worries concerning Henrietta’s cells. They reflect the reality of that time that black people had no money to afford treatment from cancer (Skloot, 2011, p. In chapter 34 Rebecca and Deborah read medical records about Henrietta, which are not structured and mixed with Henrietta’s poems. The doctors had the possibility to save her life, but there were too many patients in the hospital and the personnel did not have time for everyone (Skloot, 2011, p. Se turns out to have serious asbestos problems. In chapter 33 Deborah and Rebecca go to the Crownsville Hospital Center in search of the information about Elsie Lacks. Only Deborah goes to the hospital (Skloot, 2011, p. Henrietta’s husband is ill and can not come, because his leg has been amputated recently. Lawrence is tired of constant discussions about HeLa cells, which he considers to be the profanation of their mother’s memory because of money. In chapter 32 children of Henrietta Lacks decide to see the cells of their mother for the first time in their life.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Chapter 32-38 Summary The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Chapter 32-38 Summary
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