Summary

Chapter 1: The Exam… 1951

While her husband David Lacks and three of his children waited in the car, Henrietta Lacks rushed into Johns Hopkins Hospital to the gynecology clinic. She had a “knot” on her womb that the doctors needed to look at. She had felt a strange sensation, a “knot” she called it, in her womb for a long time. It hurt especially during sex with her husband. When Henrietta became pregnant with her fifth child a short time later, her friends told her the “knot” was her baby. Still Henrietta knew it was something else; but, she was afraid to see a doctor. She thought they’d take her womb and she wouldn’t be able to have more children. After giving birth to Joseph, she began bleeding and could feel the knot when she examined herself. Her local...