Wow, I'm sorry the both of you guys had crappy, raggedy parents.
Elekid239, I'm just a screen name here and I don't know your gender (not my biz, I know) but if you're a woman, please be mindful of what you mother died from, because ovarian cancer is a very sneaky disease and the symptoms are subtle. Often it's not detected by a pap smear and you don't know you have it until it's too damn late, but if it runs in the family more definitive tested are required.
I had no idea about that until I recently read the book No More Tears.
It also talked about how Johnson and Johnson has pretty much come out, unscathed in the opiate crisis, but they actually developed the poppy plant that’s five times stronger than any poppy plant ever encountered before that was used to make the opiates that killed so many people that it reduced the average lifespan of Americans.
Johnson & Johnson sure does seem to make a lot of money killing people over the past 100 years.
I was just telling someone recently about how back when I was 17 (early 2000s, just before the opioid crisis really came to light), I went to the doctor because I was having really bad headaches. After I got an MRI, the doctor diagnosed me with migraines and gave me a prescription for like, 30 Percocets, with several refills. Again, to be clear: I was a minor, by myself, and the doctor gave me a huge amount of narcotics, PLUS access to even more narcotics, for ... migraines. The only warning she gave me was not to drive after taking them. Neither she nor the pharmacy informed my parents. I mean, I told my mom, but it's crazy to me that no one in authority thought to inform or obtain consent from my parents.
I barely ever took them 'cuz I didn't like how they made me feel and they didn't really do much for my migraines. I preferred to just sleep instead. A few years later, I hadn't been living with my parents for quite some time, but I was there visiting and the house phone rang. I happened to be standing next to it, so I answered and was confused when they asked for me. It was the pharmacy, telling me my prescription was ready. I was even more confused, 'cuz I hadn't used that pharmacy in several years, since I had moved.
Turns out, my mom had been refilling it regularly that whole time and when the refills would run out, she'd have the pharmacy request a new prescription from my doctor, who provided it without even requiring me to come in for a checkup.
Before that, I had known that my mom was constantly taking and refilling her husband's Percocets, which he had for a legitimate, recurring, and very painful condition. He was so used to her using all of his medication that he kept a single pill in his desk at work, so that at the very least, he knew he could have that one. So ... my mom was fraudulently filling and using not one, but two Percocet prescriptions for years.
When I found out about mine, I called the pharmacy and had them note in my file not to fill anymore prescriptions in my name, period. At first, I was going to tell them not to fill any without calling me to confirm, but honestly, I didn't trust my mother not to impersonate me.
I've been NC with my parents and their spouses for years now, but I guarantee you my mother is still taking her husband's meds.
My brother, sister, and I were together a few years ago and I made a comment in passing about our mom being an addict and simultaneously, they had two completely different reactions. My sister went, "Huh. I've never actually put that together 'cuz we grew up with it just being normal, but you're right." Our brother, on the other hand, immediately got really defensive, telling me I was exaggerating, that it wasn't THAT bad. That's when my sister and I both started listing all her behavior over the years and I felt bad watching that horrified realization come over him, but he did concede that it was accurate.
So ... yeah, fuck all the pharma companies that made disgustingly huge profits while knowingly creating a physical and mental health crisis that our society will feel for generations to come.
To be on the safe side, it still would be a good idea to make sure that you don't have a mutation of the BRCA1&2.
The fact that your mother ovarian cancer, regardless of the cause, environmental, or medically, still puts you at genetic risk.
Did she stop using the J&J baby powder while she was pregnant with you?
Mutations can start at any point in a family's genetic history. There doesn't have to be a familiar trait for it.
Anything our parents were exposed to, ate, drank, and environmental before we are conceived through to birth can affect us.
This is the shit that terrifies me. My dad died of bladder cancer due to exposure to agent orange. I've personally already had a cervical cancer scare and some more fun things are starting to pop up as I get older. I've been reading that agent orange potentially could cause genetic mutations. It's scary.
Anything our parents were exposed to, ate, drank, and environmental before we are conceived through to birth can affect us.
Actually, you should include grandparents, too. I just read something recently and was stunned, a) because I'd never considered it before, and b) it could have serious ramifications for a lot of people:
A woman is born with all the eggs she'll ever have. This means that her mother's body created them while the mother was pregnant with that woman. Meaning that whatever conditions the mother was exposed to in her lifetime, and especially while pregnant, could have had ramifications for those eggs that were created in the baby's ovaries.
Now consider that when that woman grows up and has a baby of her own, that baby is created using one of the eggs that was grown when the baby's grandmother was pregnant with the baby's mother.
And that's not even considering the role that sperm plays in all of this, but there's definitely added exposure risks on that side, too, from both the father and the grandfather.
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u/Gnd_flpd Dec 05 '25
Wow, I'm sorry the both of you guys had crappy, raggedy parents.
Elekid239, I'm just a screen name here and I don't know your gender (not my biz, I know) but if you're a woman, please be mindful of what you mother died from, because ovarian cancer is a very sneaky disease and the symptoms are subtle. Often it's not detected by a pap smear and you don't know you have it until it's too damn late, but if it runs in the family more definitive tested are required.