Ozzy Osbourne Had Three Staph Infections in His Hand
Brian Storm is a prophet. The sometimes-MetalSucks contributor and Rock Feed proprietor responded as follows when I cajoled Twitter for some reckless speculation about the hand injury that caused Ozzy Osbourne’s recent show cancelations:
My speculation: Sounds like MRSA. Given he frequently interacts with the public he could have been exposed to a tough bacteria that he can’t shake due to his age.
— Rock Feed (@RockFeedNews) October 11, 2018
And now, finally, after four shows were rescheduled for summer 2019 and Sharon Osbourne gave the press some weird line about Ozzy hitting his hand on a door, we’ve got the real truth: staph infection! MRSA, in case you don’t know, is a form of a staph that’s resistant to standard antibiotics. It’s unclear whether Ozzy has regular staff or the super-bug kind, but either way, Brian Storm… you nailed it.
Staph is the kind of thing that’s embarrassing to talk about because it’s often associated with uncleanliness, but anyone can get it just by living everyday life. I’ve had it before and that shit sucks! [Cue the Vince is a dirty, grandma’s basement-dwelling neckbeard jokes]. Often it can be acquired through a small cut in the skin — that “hangnail” Sharon previously alluded to, for example — and Ozzy speculates he could’ve gotten it through shaking hands during meet and greets. Ozzy recounted the tale to Rolling Stone of how Sharon insisted he go to the emergency room after his thumb started swelling up:
“I didn’t feel sick, so I was cracking jokes,” he says. “The doctor said, ‘I don’t know if you realize, Mr. Osbourne, this is a very serious problem you have.’ Sharon said, ‘Would you stop fucking making jokes?’” He laughs. “So I said, ‘Well, it’s my hand.’” The thing was, nobody was laughing. “They’re all extremely, deadly serious about it,” he says. “I judge it based on the expression and the body language of the doctor. If he comes in with a really solemn face, I go, ‘Oh, OK. My time to go is up.’” He laughs.
Staph can be deadly if it gets into the bloodstream and spreads throughout the body, so doctors put Ozzy on antibiotics and performed surgery on his thumb and middle finger, where the staph had already spread:
“You put your thumb in front of your face on your right hand, they went in by the side of the nail on the left side for the flesh under the nail,” he says. “They cut all this stuff out. Even with the numbing stuff, it was agony. It wasn’t pus, but it was the stage after pus, when it gets in the blood and goes in your body and fucking kills you. It may sound fucked up what I’m saying to you, but he was really concerned about checking my blood.”
Yuck. Thankfully he’s now on the mend, at home, and back to feeling about “85 to 90 percent better.” More info over at Rolling Stone.
