HeLa Attention

During our discussion on Tuesday, I was trying to follow the discussion, with some difficulty, about the first section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  I was a little confused by the reading and what we were discussing.  As I understood it, Henrietta Lacks was admitted for surgery much earlier than African-American women tended to be during the time she first became sick.  This was nearing the rise of the civil rights movement, so anyone associated with a darker skin tone was sent to the colored section, which she initially was, and was taken into consideration at a later time.  The fact that she was admitted as early as she was and was operated on surprised me, although she had been sent home before when she came in complaining about a pain that ended up being a tumor.  I'm just curious as to why she was taken into care as quickly as she was at John Hopkins, and if she hadn't been admitted and operated on at that point, if she would have been at all, and if the HeLa cell line would have come to be known to us at all.