Mom admits to stealing dying daughter's pain meds

[Judi Lynn]

Source: USA Today


Posted: Sep 13, 2018 1:22 PM CDT
Updated: Sep 13, 2018 1:22 PM CDT
By The Associated Press

TROY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman has been charged with stealing her terminally ill daughter's pain medications.

Forty-six-year-old Carol Ballweg, of Troy, was charged Wednesday with four counts of stealing a controlled substance and two counts of abuse of a vulnerable person.

Police say Ballweg was the primary caregiver for her 20-year-old daughter who is in hospice care. Medical staff found bed sores on the daughter and began suspecting the daughter wasn't being given the prescribed doses of fentanyl and oxycodone, so they tested her urine. Police say it showed no signs of the medications, even though Ballweg repeatedly requested refills ahead of schedule.

Police say Ballweg confessed to being addicted to opioids and using the medicine herself. Bond is set at $100,000. No attorney is listed for Ballweg in online court records.

Read more: http://www.azfamily.com/story/39086810/mom-admits-to-stealing-dying-daughters-pain-meds

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(Short article, no more at link.)

[Stuart G]

1. Horrific...k and r...what else can be said?

[pnwmom]

2. I wonder how bed sores would tip them off to her not being given her pain medication?

Maybe they thought she was being neglected in general.

What a terrible story.

[Lochloosa]

6. They are painful.

[mopinko]

7. could cause writhing and rubbing that would exacerbate sores.

but yeah, general neglect as well.

[Nitram]

16. What's the connection between bed sores and not having enough pain medication?

She may have taken excellent care of her with the added guilt of stealing her medication. Addicts aren't incapacitated unless they don't have their fix.

[BlueTsunami2018]

3. A junkie will rob anyone.

Never understood the appeal of that kind of high. It turns you into a thief, a whore, a liar and a cheat. It’s a horrible addiction.

[SCantiGOP]

22. Absolutely right

In the eighties I had a friend who lost everything, including a successful business he had started when he was 22, because of cocaine.
He said the first time he snorted a big line he said, “Damn, that was better than sex.”
He said everyone in the room laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. It became more important to him than everything else in his life.
He’s been clean now for over 30 years, so you can beat it.

[FSogol]

4. Very sad. n/t

[iluvtennis]

5. Wow, let your daughter suffer in pain so you can get a high. Disgusting.

[SkyDaddy7]

14. That's how powerful addiction is...

It really is a disease & once it takes hold of an individual, especially an opioid addiction, that is all their brain focuses on & LITERALLY nothing else matters.

It is 1000X worse to witness firsthand than dementia! IMHO.

[Roadside Attraction]

8. True story

I'm an Advanced Life Support EMT with a volunteer rescue squad in rural Virginia.

A neighbor has a multitude of medical challenges -- congestive heart failure, end stage COPD, diabetes. Last Sunday around 10:00 AM I went to check on him -- had my medic bag with me -- found him DOA -- already cold. His old black lab nestled against him, would not leave.

I called sheriff, called rescue squad, etc.

Then, per protocol, I rounded up all his meds and checked quantity dispensed, daily dose, and quantity remaining -- we do this to check for possible OD. Everything was in order.

His son arrived a few hours later. The guy had told me months ago he was concerned that his son was addicted to pain meds.

I went back to the house Monday morning -- his pain meds were gone -- about 40 7.5 mg oxycodone -- powerful stuff. I questioned the son -- short version -- had to call the cops again because the son had grabbed all his pain meds.

Addiction is a terrible thing.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Horrific ordeal. You have actually "been there," to see for yourself.

Doesn't seem possible people would actually do something they know is causing someone else to suffer.

Thanks for your eye-witness experience. It surely wasn't long ago.

Welcome to D.U., Roadside Attraction.

[jeffreyi]

9. Now that's an addiction.

Vicious, brain cooking stuff.

[DoctorJoJo]

11. The Term "Special Place in Hell" Fits This Bitch to a Tee!

[RobinA]

19. I Have To Feel

for this woman. Her 20-year-old daughter is dying. Maybe she helped herself one day to a Perc to take the edge off a horrible situation. Lo and behold, it worked. Temporarily. So she took one again... She wasn't too careful and the next thing she knew she's gotta have it and things are out of control. I certainly don't think jail is the place for her.

[NBachers]

12. It's going to be a rough ride out of her dependency in jail.

[McCamy Taylor]

13. Drug addicts know that their terminal relatives get "the good stuff."

Some people are shit, as William Burroughs (himself an addict) would have said.

[Nitram]

15. Look, an addict will do whatever it takes. There are probably a millions stories like this.

Addiction is an illness that completely takes over your body and your mind, leaving you helpless. that's why treatment is the only answer, not punishment.

[raccoon]

17. Thank you. Nt

[Aristus]

18. Yeah, but when medical providers exercise all due caution when writing opioid prescriptions,

we get called every name in the book...

[MicaelS]

20. You know what?

I really do not care. I would much rather have 1,000 people addicted to opiods than 1 person suffer in pain.

The fucking state and federal governments can kiss my ass. And if the AMA or any other organization supports withdrawal of pain meds they can kiss my ass too.

[Aristus]

21. Addiction is the starting point, not the end-point.

Death from overdose is the end-point. Is that better than someone living with pain?

There's a reason why prescriptive authority is granted to people with training, licensure, and clinical judgement.

[runtel]

27. Amen!

[kcr]

25. It's the drug warrior "doctors" that think everyone's an addict that cause this heartache

in the first place, "doctor" fraud.

[Aristus]

26. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'fraud'.

Each state maintains a database of patients who fill prescriptions for opioid medications. It discloses to the provider the name of the patient, the date the Rx was filled, the name of the medication and the prescribing provider, and for how many tablets the scrip was for.

If a provider accesses the database to investigate a patient requesting a prescription for opioids, and it discloses multiple prescriptions from multiple providers for large numbers of tablets in a short period of time, the provider understands that his patient is almost certainly an addict, and writing a prescription would be clinically inappropriate.

The provider is committing no kind of fraud in abiding by a documented source of prescription drug abuse.

[ROB-ROX]

23. 115 prescription people die from opiates every day

This mother should be given the maximum prison term and her family should shun the bitch. This is another conservative evil released on the USA. I remember during the 1960-80 period the addiction rate was sky high.

[RobinA]

24. I Don't Understand

your post. Other then that empathy is not any part of your worldview.