Summary from page 66 to 92

By September, tumors had spread throughout Henrietta’s body.  She suffered pains all over her body and she had to be tied to the bed because she was always falling out of the bed in pain so unbearable.   She was receiving a blood transfusion as usual when suddenly her whole body became rigid.   She felt such a severe pain that she even bit her tongue.   As a result, the doctor injected her with a heavy dose of morphine and the doctor stopped all medications and treatments.   In addition, Henrietta’s condition worsened.   Sadly, she died a month later.   When Gey heard Henrietta had died, he called her husband to give him the sad news about her death, and also to ask for permission to perform an autopsy on her body.   In fact, the cause of Henrietta’s death was Terminal Uremia because some tumors had completely blocked her urethra and she could not urinate.   In the end, her family kept her body for a while and then, she was buried next to her mother.

The writer arrived in Baltimore looking for family Lacks because she wanted more information about Henrietta.   She found the place that Henrietta formerly resided in, what was called Turners Station.   She met Courtney Speed who knew Henrietta and her and others were going to open a museum in Henrietta’s honor.   Courtney showed the writer a picture and a documentary about Henrietta and her unique cells, but she could not talk about Henrietta without Henrietta’s family permission.

 Afterwards, the writer traveled to Clover, Virginia looking for Lacks Town.  When she got there, she met Cootie, Henrietta’s first cousin.  His real name is Hector Henry they call him “Cootie” because when he was a kid, he got polio and a local white doctor took him to the hospital passing him off as his son.  The doctor did that because the hospital did not treat black patients at that time.

 After a year of treatment at the hospital, he returned to his house.   As a result, he could not move his arms very well like a normal person.   Remarkably, he built his own house twice because the first one had burnt down.  Cootie began to talk about Henrietta with the writer and he told her how Henrietta took care of him when he got sick by polio.   He told her that some people were saying that Henrietta’s sickness was made by a person, but also others said that it was by a doctor.   No one could say for sure.

1-    How and why did the family keep Henrietta’s body for so long?

2-    Why the doctor did not tell Henrietta’s husband that she was going to die?