Saturday, September 28, 2013
Henrietta Lacks Chapters 4-9
Please read the required chapters and post a response in the comments section. Most students received a strong grade on the last Henrietta Lacks post, so keep up the good work. Feel free to post on whatever strikes you as interesting, relevant, or even unclear. Have a nice weekend.
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ReplyDeleteAs I read this book I get more and more interested in knowing what its going to talk about next. I found it very mean how they were using Henrietta's cells to experiment on the rats and the rats dying. They don't really care if the rats and cells die because they know they can easily get more cells. When reading chapter 7 the book stated that people wouldn't of payed much attention to who the cells came from if Gey would of said it in his appearance. I asked myself if it was because it didn't matter to people or because she was black? Henrietta kept going to the doctor and telling them she had pains, but they couldn't find anything wrong with her, and a few days after they find more tumors. I can relate this to the time period the story takes place in because black people weren't treated as well as white people. The doctors could of not wanted to attend Henrietta so they would just send her home with the pain until she got worse. The book states that Henrietta and Gey never met, but he told his assistant that he did talk to her and let her know that her cells were going to help others and she smiled. I find this very confusing and this quote leaves you thinking if there was ever a conversation between them
ReplyDeleteI found that chapters four through nine went into detail with some of the characters. These chapters got personal and into depth with George Gey and Henrietta. I think of Gey as a genius, and a handy man not only can he do the dirty work but the paper work as well. I think he’s a genius because as a child he would build things out of scraps to help his neighbors and family’s. Gey graduated from the University of Pittsburgh which he paid by carpentering and working small jobs. I think of Henrietta as hard working women who loves her family and wants nothing but the best for them. Chapter four through nine really demonstrates this. Henrietta didn’t even want to tell her family that she had cancer because she didn’t want to worry them which I think is a selfless act.
ReplyDeletethe more i read of Henriettas life, the more I feel conected with her. She i a very strong and indepentent women that does her best to take care of her family. I love that the writer tells abou her personal journey to get hold of Henriettas life. The writer does a gret job of useing sympthy nd jumping back and forth between the two stories that she is connecting.
ReplyDeleteChapter four through nine make the life of Henrietta Lacks become more and more realistic. Skloot does an amazing job connecting the past with what she already knows in her research. The birth of HeLa gave Gey a reason to celebrate, the fact that he gave many cells throughout the world surprised me. Besides Henrietta's sickness she took care of herself well; she is described as a beautiful female who "could really make the good things come out of you"(43). Henrietta's character is always described as "tough", which reminds of Georgia O'Keeffe definition of "hardness." It takes a strong women like Henrietta to have to let one of her children go. I can really feel how she must of felt when she could no longer take care of Elsie. She went through a lot of pain and suffering, especially after she found out she was sterile. The thing that grabbed most of my attention, was how "doctors knew best, and most patients didn't question that. Especially black patients in public wards,...segregation was the law,...patients were just glad to be getting treatment, since discrimination in hospitals was widespread"(63,64). The notes from the doctors skipped most of everything that Henrietta was feeling, instead of the radiation helping the pain got worse.There was never any record of George Gey ever visiting Henrietta but he actually did. To me this shows his only interest were the cells and not Henrietta.Skloot shows honesty and carefulness toward the Lack family, I believe this what makes the story flow together.
ReplyDeleteChapter 6 of this novel embedded the racial prejudice towards African Americans in that specific time era. The white scientists' cruel actions towards the black community signifies their unimaginable hatred, specifically seen in their experiments with syphilis.
ReplyDeleteOut of all the chapter I've read chapter 8 stood out the most when I read that there was no way of knowing if Henrietta's treatment would have been different if she were white. Even if Howard Jones said that Henrietta got the same treatment as any white patient would have. later I read that black patients weren't treated when they had to be treated. This made me think that if scientists were looking for a way to find a cure, shouldn't they have done the same procedure to everyone because they were trying to find the cure for the same illness that both white and black patients suffered? If there were all treated at the same stage then there could have been more concrete answers and data gathered from it. Later in chapter 8 she's told that 'her cells would help save the lives of countless people.' It is here when I realized how giving she really was because instead of complaining that her cells were taken without her consent, she was happy knowing that her pain was going to help someone else.
ReplyDeleteI am definitely amazed at how Henrietta lived her life fully and didn't let her sickness ruin her fun. Henrietta was really family oriented, she even wanted another child after the fact she was still going through her cancer treatments. Henrietta cells were being shipped all over the world because no one has ever seen cells continue to double before. Henrietta wasn't treated unfairly at all because the doctors made sure they took well care of her, as stated in chapter 8 " Henrietta got the same care any white patient would have". Although, Gey didn't contact Henrietta after taking her cells, she didn't bother to make a big deal out of it because she was told that the cells could cure other people lives. In my opinion, Henrietta lived a wonderful life and she was always happy so that automatically made her a strong woman in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteAll I have to say about the book so far is that Henrietta is a great role model. No matter how life get or whatever tends to happen to her she stays strong and keeps moving forward. I like the way she still wanted to have children and wouldn't have got the treatment if she was aware that wasn't going to be able to have anymore children after the radiation. Over all Henrietta is an amazing women to learn from.
ReplyDeleteThese chapters taught me a lot about henrietta and more of her amazing personality I loved how it was mentioned that she would bring out the life in things I thought it was Ironic how that was mentioned and it ended up being true since her cells help so many things from dying and help those things close to death come back to life. Also these chapters gave me a more calm feeling that henrietta was the type of person that would have been extremely happy if she knew how good her cells turned out to be and how many people she was able to help.
ReplyDeleteafter reading these couple of chapters I learned that Henrietta was a great person. so humble to anyone even though she was a black woman during the segregation of different races. it surprised me when Henrietta kept returning to the Hopkins Hospital with pain in her abdomen area but the doctors kept sending her home as if it were nothing. it turned out to be tumors on her kidneys and her abdomen. was it because she was a black female and she wouldn't understand? Rebecca Skloot said that they received the same care as whites. Henrietta doesn't let the cancer get in the way of her love for anybody.
ReplyDeleteHenrietta has a lot of pride, its honestly inspirational to me. She refused to tell anyone about her illness because she was afraid that this will affect her and her family. she didn't care about what others thought, she carried on with her daily life taking care of her family and at the same time being strong enough to endure the pain she experienced on a day to day basis.
ReplyDeleteI found Henrietta's personality very inspirational. The fact that she would continue living her life as if nothing was wrong makes her the kind of person people should have learned about a long time ago. I thought it was kind of odd that Rebecca Skloot was the first to publish a book about Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta's life was so interesting, I can't see why more books were published. I honestly think that if Henrietta would have known all the lives she was saving, cures her cells were discovering and how much change she had made and is still making, would make her proud. In these chapters I learned more about Henriettas life and personality than the previous chapters. Henrietta was just a normal woman who liked to go dancing, cooked, and worked. Who would have known that she would have such a positive impact on others and science. Throughout the chapters, Henrietta was more involved with getting treated, knowing what was wrong and attending her appointments than she did before. In the beginning of chapter 8, I realized how doctors looked down on the colored patients. They would withhold information from them; they didn't want to "confuse" them. Well how were they suppose to learn anything if no one tried to explain or teach them?
ReplyDeleteI have to say that Henrietta is a really strong women even if she is about to die. I find her really loyal to Day no matter what. She would still wait for him to get off work even if she is in pain. I really believe that they treat her this way was because she was black. Henrietta's cell would help everyone but doctor's during that time would hide her true medical records. I honestly say reading about Dr. Gey is really boring to me. Finally after reading through all those chapters I felt that the doctor was never really trying to cure her. I think that part of the reason they lie about her medical condition and that they didn't really treat her was to keep her to always coming back to the hospital and to keep testing her and taking her cells. Even in the end Dr, Gey tried to take her cells but sadly she was dying. The story is quite interesting because the writer tends to switch back and forth from past and present. I really like her persistence in reaching for the contact of the Lack's families. Her adventurous is amusing.
ReplyDeleteThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks touches an important part of racism within science and the ideas of the famous scientist Carrel a person who was seen as the founder of the culture cells. A question I ask did the physician try to compensate Henrietta by giving her nose reconstruction? In chapter five it explains how in her second visit the doctors decided to do her a nose reconstruction for her sinus, back then getting procedures like this was not common. Racism is a major topic that we see in the chapters . The scientist Carrel a French surgeon had malignant thoughts when cultivating the cells he wanted to find the immortal life of the cells to make the superior race "whites" and intellectual live longer. He had many fascist ideals that could be connected to the time period his country was going through with the ideas Mussolini imposed on his French civilians similar to Hitlers. Do scientist do things for their best interest or for the interest of the people? Chapter six gives us insight of the terrible things that the people of color were going through, some were lied to so that the doctors could experiment on then from letting them die of syphilis, to letting young doctors practice on them to get better. These chapters give us great insight of the injustices that were done which we did not know about. The poor and colored were seen as ignorant, the educated never informed them of what was being done as to gain, things were done for their benefit and advancement.
ReplyDeleteAs I keep reading the book, it gets even more interesting and it surprises me chapter after chapter. For example the two women Henrietta and Mary surprise me on how they are. Henrietta surprises me because she just got out of the hospital from her treatments and she goes on with her life like nothing is wrong. Henrietta sneaks out demonstrating to herself and the reader that even with cancer she still does things that supposedly a healthy young person can do. Mary is George Gey assistant/helper and she was given tasks by Gey to see how good she was with her hands and she is a woman that knows how to demonstrate her skills. Mary has been working for Gey for a while and she even teaches Gey some new things that he does not know. I enjoyed reading these chapters because it shows how women can be as skillful and strong has men that was not taken to notice by people only because the were women.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started reading Chapters 4-9 I realized that it answered all the questions that everyone was asking in their head. But these past chapters upset at how disrespectful those doctors are. While I'm reading through the chapters I'm thinking like know one is asking permission to take her cells or anything. When Mary, Gey's assistant, said she didn't know HeLa was actually coming from a human body until she seen Henrietta laying on that table with red toenails, that disgusted me. It was like they had know respect for the human race and it was like they didn't care where the cells where coming from as long as they were receiving them. These Chapters just really upset me.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think anyone seen that Henrietta Lacks had such important cells. To me it’s like a scripted movie were an unlucky person gets some super powers after a series of unfortunate events, except that Hela or her family didn’t gain anything from this experience. No one knew that Hela had immortal cells in her body, but I think it’s amazing that Hela was conveniently George Gey’s patient who had an obsession with cell culture and was looking for a way to make cells immortal. While gey took Hela cells and they found the discovery Hela was suffering from all the radium in her body and the front of her body turned black. Henrietta was still a very strong woman who had to go through a lot of pain emotionally in physically. She had to lose her oldest daughter to the hospital of the Negro insane, “Henrietta’s cousins always said a bit of Henrietta died that day”(Sloot 45). Hela didn’t even know Gey took her cells and after Hela died Dr. Gey took all the fortune while her family got nothing. However I don’t think Dr. Geys a bad guy, I wouldn’t blame him I would just blame he world we live in especially at that time. So instead of this being a super hero movie this would be more like the tragedy of Henrietta Lacks.
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