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Henrietta Lack Cancer

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According to the National Cancer Institute, about 40% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life, and there were approximately 13,776,251 people living with cancer in 2012. Cancer is a common disease with many types and forms. The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot shows the story of a woman with cervical cancer, and how her illness affected herself and her family. Although cancer affects a patient physically, it also has effects on the patient mentally and financially, as well as it challenges patients to change their lifestyles for the better. The diagnosis of cancer can have an enormous impact on a cancer patient mentally. A cancer diagnosis can be shocking to some patients. "After you …show more content…

When a patient is told they have a disease, they are shocked. Some patients worry that they may die, and others feel numb or confused about it. They may have a hard time realizing that their disease could be fatal. “When he asked if she was okay, her eyes welled with tears and she said, “Like I’m always telling my brothers, if you gonna go into history, you can’t do it with a hate attitude. You got to remember, times was different” (Skloot 276). This quote was talking about how Henrietta was faced with the possibility that she might die. Many of cancer patients are faced with this, which can cause them psychological stress. In the case of Henrietta Lacks and her children, it was not just the diagnosis, but the idea that her cells were stolen from …show more content…

Having cancer frequently forces patients into changing their lifestyles for the better. It is proven that making positive lifestyle changes decreases the chances that cancer will recur. "Many patients and survivors worry about cancer coming back after treatment. Evidence suggests that making positive lifestyle changes during and after cancer treatment may help prevent a recurrence or second cancer" (Healthy Living After Cancer). This can show how the fear of the recurrence of cancer can drive the former cancer patient into being healthier. Some patients may focus on more that they would have otherwise taken for granted. "She 'd pull herself out of bed, press her hands and face to the glass, and watch her children play on the lawn" (Skloot 66). Henrietta knew she would not have much time left, so she made sure to enjoy what she thought she would miss. She changed her lifestyle because she thought more about what was important to her and made sure she enjoyed herself. In Henrietta Lacks ' case, her cells helped the lives of tons of other patients, as well as the advancement in cancer research. "Her cells were part of research into the genes that cause cancer and those that suppress it; they helped develop drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, and Parkinson 's disease; and they 've been used to study lactose digestion, sexually transmitted diseases, appendicitis, human longevity, mosquito mating, and the negative cellular effects of working in

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Dana Garcia Ripley Honors English 2 20 March 2017 Lack of Justice The book The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks whose cells made one of the greatest medical contributions ever. Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer at the age of 31. Cells were taken from her body without her knowledge. Rebecca L. Skloot is a self-employed science writer who specializes in science and medicine.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Doctors took her cells without consent and launched a multi-million dollar industry. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, a poor wife, mother, and farmer. Lack cells opened the door for many new advances in medicine. These advances include: the polio vaccine and nuclear testing. These cells have helped us to understand cancer, HIV/AIDS, and cells in general.

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Immortal cells from a woman who never even knew they’d been stolen from her. Henrietta Lacks would change the medical field without even knowing it. Henrietta had a family, a love life, and trials, before her unfortunate death. Henrietta was born on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke Virginia. She was born on the floor of a house that was known as the “The Home-House.”

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In the first section, he gives numerous examples of how normal his life was before the diagnosis. He recounts his childhood and his beginnings of how he loved to read because of his mother. He tells of when he would stay out late reading in the starlight to come home to his mother worried that he was doing drugs, but “the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week” (27). He continues with all of his life before cancer, but when he gets the results he says “One chapter of my life seemed to have ended; perhaps the whole book was closing” (120). The rest of the book, the closing of his book as he calls it, focuses on examples of how cancer changed his

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In 1951, at the age of 31 Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Henrietta was under treatment at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where cells from her malignant tumor were removed. Neither Henrietta nor any of her family members knew about the tissue sample and nor did the Hopkins ever informed them of the situation. Unfortunately after Henrietta’s radiation treatment, her condition continued to worsen and soon she lost her battle to cancer on octomber 4th 1951. Henriettas cells left the Hopkins what they discovered to be known to be the first immortal human cell line.

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In addition, they think an illness bothers one’s behavior. Likewise, if people notice that they have a terminal illness and have to fight against it, most of them will get depressed deeply. Some people say that an illness gets worse by one’s negative thoughts. According to a study of Osaka University, there is evidence that the stress may affect on decreasing the immunity. John Green showed the situation to reverse the stereotype which having an illness is completely dark throughout his novel, The Fault in Our Stars.

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