Part One- Chapter 1: The Exam

Henrietta Lacks was the mother of five children, all babies were born to full term. About a few weeks after her fourth pregnancy she began to confide in her cousins that something was wrong. She'd say that there was a lump in her womb. At first she thought that it could have been from her pregnancy or the sexually transmitted diseases her husband often gave her from being with other women, until one day after her fifth pregnancy she began bleeding. It wasn't part of her normal menstrual cycle and she got worried. She made an appointment and her doctor sent her to John Hopkins hospital to get checked out by the gynecologist there. Although she wasn't thrilled to go, this was the time of Jim Crow and hospitals such as these were still segregated, she felt as though she had no other choice. Howard Jones, the gynecologist on duty that day, went over her records and found a lump exactly where she said it would be. He was surprised to find that her pregnancies went to full term; it meant one of two things. Either they over looked the tumor or it was growing at a rapid rate.