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Henrietta Lacks is born
Henrietta Lacks, born Loretta Pleasant, on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia, to Eliza (1886–1924) & John Randall Pleasant. -
Marriage.
Henrietta has her first child at the age of fourteen. She marries her first cousin David 'Day' Lacks on April 10, 1941. They have another child. -
Discovery of the problem
Lacks visited the hospital to have a lump in her stomach checked out and as her cousins predicted she was pregnant. after giving birght lacks sarted to bleed profusely, she was tested for syphilis witch came back negative. she was than reffered to John Hopkins hospital. -
Bad news
Being as John Hopkins hospital was the only one in the area that would treat black patients. The new doctor found a small lump, it was nothing he had ever seen before. the doctor cut a small piece off of the tumor and sent it to the pathology lab. soon after Lacks had discovered she had a malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix Stage 1 (cervical cancer). -
Treatment
Henrietta was treated with Radium tube inserts witch were sewn into place. After a few days the tubes were removed and she was released from JOhn Hopkins with instructions to return for a follow up X-ray. -
Excuses
Lacks returned for the X-ray treatments. However, her condition worsened and the Hopkins doctors treated her with antibiotics, thinking that her problem might be complicated by an underlying venereal disease (she had neurosyphilis and presented with acute gonorrhea at one point as well). -
Readmittence
In significant pain and without improvement, Lacks returned to Hopkins on August 8th for a treatment session but asked to be admitted. She remained at the hospital until her death -
Death
She recieved treatment and blood transfusions,she died of uremic poisoning. A subsequent partial autopsy showed that the cancer had metastasized throughout her body. -
HeLa
The cells from Henrietta's tumor were given to researcher George Gey, who "discovered that cells did something they'd never seen before: They could be kept alive and grow." Before Henrietta, cells cultured from other patients would only survive for a few days. Scientists spent more time trying to keep the cells alive than performing actual research on the cells. Some cells in Lacks's tissue sample behaved differently than others. George Gey was able to isolate one specific cell.
