edwardcharles

I discovered this book some time ago while looking for reads to suggest for a bookclub on facebook. I'm pretty sure I read a review in the NY Times and thought the book would provoke conversation. The bookclub didn't choose the read. I finally got around to picking it up and diving in along w/both my then 16 year old daughter and 72 year old mother. As of late, we've been enjoying reads together, examining the different perspectives among three generations. Oddly enough or perhaps divinely enough; I myself, just recently suffered some health setbacks having developed uterine necrosis and had to have an emergency surgery. During this entire time, I was questioning the physicians and their decisions about how to address my health. This being the case, I was reading with great intensity. When the author, Rebecca Skloot introduces the story and her personal curiosity to find and learn about the woman behind HeLa cells. The cells that could magically, inexplicably reproduce themselves that would go to create preventive treatments for diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, HIV and so many more and are still producing. I immediately recognized that this story would be as much about the author's passion to unearth the story as it would be about Henrietta lacks, the amasing woman behind HeLa. As we begin our journey, we meet a young girl, small in stature, pretty, meticulous w/her appearance, strong and sure. The author shares Henritta's beginnings in VA, her life as a tobacco farmer, her relationships w/her cousins, her community and then her marriage and parenthood. The author knows her as much as she can, she knows from whence Henritta came and has a good idea of the life she is trying to create. For me, the part in the book when she feels an abnomality within her body is very telling of who she was. She reaches inside herself to put her hand right on the hard lump on her cervix. As she seeks medical care and her cancerous cells/tumors grow at an alarming rate; not even a year after seeking treatment, Henritta passes away all the whie experiencing pain that required extreme doses of morphine. Her life was cut short and those entrusted to care for her extracted her cells and used them for scientific exploration. Henrietta's cells were passed near/far for medical testing for various subjects and all of this was done w/o Henritta's consent nor the consent of her family. The profound and devastating effect the lost of her life has on those who love her, those whom she loved and cared her is heartbreaking and quite frankly gut-wrenching. The book is full of science and normally I would've tuned out or been lost had it not been such a compelling human story... There are so many issues examined. -Bioethics -The value of human life and the control one should have over his/her body. -The treatment in which African Americans often receive, based on our invisibility to many in society and the value put on AA life. -Christianity/Spiritualism -Family -Education or lack there of -How something so devastating (losing one's mother) can play such a defining role or really make a significant impact on the trajectory of a child's life.

2022-10-29 03:32