I am a repeat customer at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. During the first week of December, I was
admitted for what turned out to be Right Heart Failure. Chelsea
and I had to wait in Admissions for the room assignment. No surprise, that we had to wait some more. I was feeling pretty relaxed. We had some good conversations
with the women in admittance. Finally,
they called for me. I asked, “Where am I
going?” “To the old section,” one of the
receptionists cheerfully announced.
PANIC struck. ANXIETY set
in. The story of The Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks vividly appeared right before my eyes. I could see the back door Henrietta was
forced to enter to get to the segregated section of this hospital. The ill-equipped operating room made me
shiver. The fact they withheld information
about her cancer filled me with doubt. She
had no idea what was going on or her need to follow-up after she returned to
her home.
Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old
black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951.
Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns
Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned
the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell line—known as HeLa.
These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments.
What author Skloot so poignantly portrays is the devastating impact Henrietta's death
and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children.
(from Publishers Weekly).
Chelsea couldn't believe my reaction. Once I got settled in my own room and Nurse Ratched didn’t
pop in, my nerves calmed down. I thought it best to stay away from these types of books for a
while. And, just in case, I was nice to
everyone who came in my room. Tomorrow, I hope to find out if I need to return to JH for another few days. If I do, I think
I’ll put a good book on the Kindle that takes me on a time travel, or a good crime scene on the Irish coast, or better yet a book on miracles..
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