And this country wonders why we have such a high suicide rate?!!! Dang, I never thought I'd see a conversation going on in DU like this. I'd put this up to the Hillary/Bernie wars on DKOS. After being a years-long lurker, I finally registered, and now am thinking I need to back out of here. I don't feel like I belong.
I'm disabled, and I not only feel not wanted around here now but humiliated. I've got lupus SLE, degenerative disk disease, sciatica, a replaced hip, and the surgeons won't even touch my back anymore. Until the lupus kicked into gear, I managed to make it to work and back for years and be a "contributing" member of society... but only with my pain management. People have lost their damned minds over this issue AFAIC. One year before the pandemic, I requested 2 days telework to help manage my bad lupus days. I ended up being forced out of work and into early retirement. One year after the pandemic, a minimum of 3 days telework is now required of everyone, and I'm still bitter about that.
But the main reason I wanted to keep on with pain mgmt wasn't work... or keep up with the housework... it was to be able to walk my freaking dog and play with my cats. I wanted to continue to go to the park with friends and travel in a car more than 20 miles at a time. I wanted to enjoy my kid and my nephew. IOW, I wanted as much of my "old" ablist life back as I could possibly get. And how dare anyone fault me for those desires! Like someone said up thread, if you take the meds AS THEY ARE SUPPOSE TO BE TAKEN you don't get "high." It's not fun. It just enables you to move without screaming in agony, dang it. And my DH, who used to had bad trouble with heroin, etc., as as teen, explains that anyone who does go crazy on the pills or the dope is because they can't love themselves. Those of us secure enough in our persons to know we love and are loved don't need that addicting aspect.
I had ONE child and SHE was the start of my back problems, so don't tell me pregnancy has no effect on the back! The spinal column is one of the weakest areas of the body, and many of us start out life behind the 8-ball thanks to genetics and genetic predispositions. My daughter has had 3 kids, is as active as I was at that age, and is already on the way to what every other woman in her family has suffered with her back and hips. She's also long haul covid. She's trying to maintain on the OTC stuff, which in my estimation is nothing but a bunch of lies they sell you in order to take your money and leave you still writing in pain. The only bigger OTC drug racket, IME, is weight loss pills.
And, because everyone HAS lost their freaking mind over the bugaboo narcotics, pain management clinics have become the newest black hole where all your money can get sucked down while the pain still sucks you down into darker holes. The whole conversation might as well be harkening back to the early days when whatever was wrong with women was chalked up to "hysteria." And not one person in this conversation has brought up the number of suicides they tout as pandemic... which are actually due to illegal drugs because you can't get a doc to prescribe anymore, the state won't let you have, or the damned pharmacists think they've suddenly become doctors.
I love animals. I push my pain for animals. I rescue; I foster; I find forever homes; I take care of 2 colonies, and I TNR. Is that smart? Well, given my bad back, duh... no. But do I REALLY want to spend the rest of my life laying in a bed doing nothing just so I don't have to take pain meds? Give me a freaking break. I find my fulfillment at this late age in helping the very least among us, IME. I swear, my daughter collects foster sons like I collect foster kittens, and the kids are better for her love and attention and advocacy. And each one of those kids is learning responsibility for themselves and the family because they DO have to help her out because of her back. Egads, people... what the hell ever happened to walking a mile in someone else's shoes... or souls.
I apologize for the probable overall tone. Hell, I don't know if I'll hit post or not. But we women are losing our civil rights and liberties right and left. And it's a hell of a lot harder to get them back once they're gone. I've seen all my life where women tend to be women's worst enemies. And I'm so sick of it. We either stick together and stand up for one another... whether or not we're in the exact same position or not... or we all may as well go buy habits and hijabs now. Because I truly believe it's coming to that.
I'm intensely angry at having fought for abortion rights back in the 60's and 70's and having to do the same damn thing all over again now when I'm nearly 70 yo. But I am NOT going to judge any other woman for her "predicament" whether that's another abortion, a stronger BC pill, or a damned pain pill to keep on keeping on with daily life. And all those of you who can manage your pain with OTC aspirin, etc., more power to you. Just realize, your day WILL be coming when you're in the same boat as the rest of us out here, and I'll lay odds you're not going to want to give up whatever makes your life worth living. And there'll probably still be people around denigrating those who are dependent on pain meds for daily life. Used to be, you peed in the cup to prove you weren't using. Now they make you pee in a cup to prove you're not selling your drugs, while taking your office copay for every refill script. It's a truly screwed up existence that no one actually wishes upon themselves, and the number they "allow" you to have during a single month is nothing that would get a normal person with chronic pain "whacked out." IME, that's someone who has a drug sensitivity. And it takes YEARS to come off regular no-problem "happy pills".... where someone like me who runs out of meds 3-5 days before they can be refilled feels pain, but no weirdo strung out issues that "everyone" says we have. Gods, it makes me sick how people with chronic pain... especially women... are treated anymore. If this woman finds her fulfillment and joy in 10 children, I'll likely condemn her for being a right wing xtianist nutcase Quivverfull. But that's the end of the judgement. Her pain management should have nothing to do with it. And the State, especially has no business inserting themselves first in her reproductive freedom and second between her doctor and her other medical conditions, IMNSHO.
And, despite being on pain meds, I still can't fire dance like I did with great abandon back in the early days, and if there were a pill, a surgery, a procedure, that would allow me to give myself back to nature and the dance again, you can be danged sure I'd be first in line to get it. Which is the other hot button issue involved in this. They have no right to force their christian fears down my throat. I'm a witch and damned proud of it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
) to question why someone repeatedly does something that appears detrimental to her own health and functioning AND to that of her children--I mean, it's discussed IN THE ARTICLE, in her own words, all about her six pregnancies as her condition grew worse over time, her difficulties in caring for her children--right up until she took hydrocodone without telling the prescribing doctor and her baby tested positive for the drug. I'm not prying into her life. This is what's up for discussion from a NEWS STORY. But I didn't draw the appropriate, pre-approved conclusions that some here feel we should all spout. I'll repeat: I don't think she should be criminally liable, she has real problems and that won't solve it. However, this is also not a good situation, to keep having children and becoming more disabled after each one, and having to be on narcotics just to do the basics of child care. 
