My experience, also in the US, has been the opposite: I get prescribed addictive painkillers “just in case”.
Last time I had surgery, they told me to take ibuprofen for pain, and they also gave me a prescription for vicodin if the pain was too great. I live in an area with a significant opioid abuse problem, and they’re handing it out like candy. They didn’t tell me “call back if it’s severe” or anything like that, they just gave me the prescription. I stuck with the ibuprofen, and realistically I could have done without even that.
I suspect your experience is largely due to sexism. I’ve heard so many stories like this, where doctors don’t even think of taking women seriously.
You’ll have to pay for that much cloud storage. How much depends on your specific needs.
Backblaze offers “unlimited” PC backup for $9/month: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup/personal
If you want more control, you can save some money by using a tool that can work with a wide variety of cloud storage providers, and then pick a cheaper provider, instead of using an all-in-one service like Backblaze.
Borg Backup is a free tool that can work with lots of storage providers. This is a great option for more technical users, and there are also some GUI tools that make it easier to use like Vorta (Mac and Linux; I’m not personally familiar with any GUIs for Windows). Borg handles data de-duplication, compression, and encryption. It’s great for local backups as well as cloud backups. I’m not sure what the cheapest option is, but Hetzner supports Borg Backup in their storage boxes, which go for €3.20/month for 1TB.
rclone is similar, though it’s more of a sync tool than a backup tool. Depending on your setup, this distinction could be purely academic. It handles encryption, incremental syncing, and a lot of other advanced uses. Like Borg, you can choose from almost any cloud storage provider or use local drives.