How The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Changed The Medical Field

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about the life of the woman whose cells changed the medical field and about the impact those cells have on her family. Henrietta was a black woman who grew up in Clover, Virginia in a family of poor, tobacco farmers. Her mother died when she was young and her father left shortly after, leaving her to be raised by her grandfather, who was also raising her cousin, Day. She later married Day and they moved to Turner Station, outside of Baltimore, Maryland because Day was able to get a decent paying job. Henrietta and Day had five children: Lawrence, Elsie, Sonny, Deborah, and Zakariyya. Elsie suffered from “idiocy”, which was most likely epilepsy and was committed to an asylum. When Henrietta was 31, she

I love how she was able to gain the family’s trust and permission to tell the story. She treated the family with respect and was very open with the information she found. Many of the Lacks family members did not receive much formal education, so Skloot took time to explain the basic biology of what cells are and how Henrietta’s cells changed medicine. When Deborah or other family members incorrectly said information about HeLa cells, Skloot was quick to correct them. I do not think there was another method for Skloot to do her

Not long after Henrietta’s round of radiation, she complained to her doctors, “that she thought the cancer was spreading, that she could feel in moving through her” and the doctors ignored her complaints (63). They told her nothing was wrong and sent her on her way. According to Skloot, that was common practice, especially during the segregation era. Patients did not question doctors because it was assumed doctors knew better and “black people didn’t question white people’s professional judgement” (63). It wasn’t until Henrietta’s forth visit in just a few weeks that they listened to her and took an X-ray of her abdomen that they found a large, inoperable