Pneumonia and emphysema (lower respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, to use the proper terms) come in at No. 3 and No. 4. Smoking is the leading cause of emphysema, another very fucking good reason to quit.
Never in a billion years would I have guessed the fifth most common cause of death in the world: diarrhoea. Tragically, more than half of all the 2.2 million victims every year are kids under five years old, and they get it from dodgy food and water. Although it’s easily treatable in the West, if you’re in a poor country, a bad case of the runs can kill you from dehydration and fluid loss—especially if you’re already malnourished.
After diarrhoea, the other most likely ways to die are: AIDS (No. 6), Tuberculosis (No. 7), lung cancers (No. 8), road traffic accidents (No. 9), and premature birth/low birth weight (No. 10).
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
As the Prince of Darkness, are you a supporter of “Dr. Death”—a.k.a. the late American euthanasia advocate Jack Kevorkian, who spent almost a decade in prison?
Carlos, United States
To a certain degree I could understand “Dr. Death” when he said doctors should be able to help their patients top themselves. But then again, knowing America the way I do, if it became legal, somebody would end up doing a deal—y’know, “If you pop my nan, I’ll give you 25 per cent of the inheritance” kind of thing. There are certain kinds of doctors of here—anywhere, probably—who’d kill you for ten grand, no problem at all. And then you’d have elderly relatives who’d feel pressured into taking the death juice, ’cos they wouldn’t want to be a burden, y’know? So I’d at least want there to be some kind of process, not just squeeze-this-trigger-and-you’re-gone, see ya. Having said that, though, I’ve always told Sharon, “If my quality of life is terrible, if I can’t go for a piss by myself, if I’m paralysed—you have my permission to pull the plug.” I mean, people say, “That’s going against God.” But being a doctor is going against God, isn’t it? If you’ve got a headache, it ain’t God who reaches down and gives you the aspirin.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
At 62, you are so good-looking, man! What is your secret? Have you got some kind of magic shake that gives you eternal youth? Could you share this formula with us?
Klausitta, Tallinn, Estonia
It’s called English breakfast tea, with a good brand of honey. I get through about ten bowls of that stuff a day. I also eat as much fruit as I can. Forget bowls of brown M&Ms: the first thing I ask for when I go to any hotel room on the road is a selection of the local fruit. They also say that alcohol preserves… but I don’t believe that for one fucking second.
DR. OZZY’S INSANE-BUT-TRUE STORIES
The Age of the Supercentenarian
When I was a kid, people counted themselves lucky if they lived long enough to get a gold watch and a retirement bash down the pub. Nowadays, you can be retired for longer than you ever worked. Take Jeanne Calment, the French chick who broke the record for the longest-ever (independently verified) human lifespan. She was born in 1875 in Arles and managed to outlive her entire family, including her grandson (he died in 1963 when he fell off a motorbike). She was so old, she’d even met Vincent van Gogh—although she thought the guy was a c***. (“Dirty, badly dressed, disagreeable… very ugly, ungracious, impolite [and] sick,” was what she told one interviewer.) She was a remarkable woman, Jeanne: she took up fencing at the age of 85; kept riding a bicycle until she was 100; and smoked every day until she was 117. Meanwhile, she never went on a diet, and never stopped eating her two favourite things: olive oil and chocolate. She passed away in 1997, by which time she was an unbelievable 122 years old and 164 days. Guinness World Records now has a term for people like Jeanne who live beyond the age of 110: “supercentenarians.” According to the experts, there are between 300 and 450 of ’em living today—and you can pretty much guarantee that number’s gonna rise.
Dear Wonderful Doctor of Oz:
Now that I’m getting older, my feet constantly burn after a long day at work. I go home and rub them for two hours, thus missing Big Brother, but they still ache. I’d like to hope that this isn’t just the reality of age…. Have you ever had achy breaky feet?
(Please don’t say that I need feet transplants.)
Dusty, Coventry
There’s an easy cure for this, Dusty: learn to walk on your hands. Give it a week, and the pain will be gone. Promise.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I’m getting to the age when I need to have my first prostate check-up. Do you recommend the “digital rectal exam,” or can I get away with the (less-intrusive) urine screening test?
Christian, Stoke Newington, London
I don’t care if it’s a blood test, a urine test, or if they have to stick a bicycle frame up there—get it done. I’ve lost too many friends to prostate cancer to worry about any temporary discomfort.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My 92-year-old mother is becoming unbearable. She’s in good enough shape to live by herself but relies on me for almost 24/7 support, making it impossible for me to enjoy my retirement with my husband while we’re still both in good health. Even if we go away for a weekend, she calls day and night, laying on the emotional blackmail. What can do?
Anne, Cumbria
Here’s the problem with hanging on to your marbles for so long: you end up becoming very aware of how difficult, lonely, and painful your life is getting—and it doesn’t put you in a very good mood. I’ve personally never had to deal with that kind of situation, ’cos both my parents died quite young, and my father-in-law had Alzheimer’s, which meant he didn’t have a clue what time of day it was. As heavy-duty as Alzheimer’s is, I sometimes wonder if that’s the better way to go. But y’know, there’s no getting away from the fact that modern medicine has created a whole new set of issues when it comes to people living to these crazy ages—and I don’t think we’re anywhere near getting to the bottom of them. My only advice is to go to your doctor, tell him (or her) that this situation is gonna send you to the loony bin, and find out what kind of extra help might be available. Even if you have to pay for a private nurse out of your own pocket, it might be worth it. As you say, you ain’t gonna live forever, either.
Dr. Ozzy’s Trivia Quiz: Meet the Worms
Find the answers—and tote up your score— here
1. For a fee, a U.S. company will turn your cremated remains into…
a) Stained glass
b) A salad bowl (with optional tongs)
c) A diamond
2. What’s a “Sky burial”?
a) When your ashes are blasted into outer space on a Russian-made rocket
b) When your corpse is fed to vultures
c) When your ashes are thrown out of a plane over your favourite place
3. Which of these Last Will & Testaments are real?
a) The Australian bloke who left one shilling to his wife—“for a tram fare so she can go somewhere and drown herself”
b) The Beverly Hills socialite who asked to be buried in her Ferrari, wearing a lace gown, “with the seat slanted comfortably”
c) The Countess who left $80 million to her dog
4. What did Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick demand to have in his coffin?
a) A window
b) An air tube
c) A lid he could unlock and open—allowing him to walk out into his tomb if he “woke up” (the key was to be put in his shroud pocket)
5. “Angel Lust” is what, exactly?
a) When a corpse gets a boner
b) When someone wishes for an early death
c) When someone turns religious on their death bed
Dr. Ozzy’s Prescription Pad
Epilogue
Take as Directed…
As much as this book ain’t supposed to be taken too seriously, I hope you’ve learned a few things along the way—I know I have. When people ask you for advice every week, it’s liking getting a crash course in human nature. You also learn a lot about yourself in
a weird kind of way. So before I sign-off, here are a ten simple tips I’ve come up with over my time as “Dr. Ozzy” for living a long and happy life. They won’t solve every problem. But I promise you: keep ’em in mind, and you’ll at least have a shot at avoiding some of the stupid fucking mistakes I’ve made over the years.
God bless you all.
Dr. Ozzy
• Your doctor has seen patients come through his doors with fluorescent green dicks and/or family pets stuck up their buttholes, so trust me, whatever’s wrong with you ain’t as embarrassing as you think it is.
• If you think it might be the booze, it’s the booze.
• No-one’s family is perfect. Worry about real problems, not about what other people think.
• If you find a lump—any lump—don’t prick it with a pin, hit it with a mallet, look it up on the internet, or ask Dr. Ozzy if you should wait until it grows into a second head. Get it checked out, now. (And get a physical every year.)
• Your genes don’t decide who you are—you do. If the Prince of Darkness managed to get clean and sober after 40 years, anything is fucking possible.
• People who make you feel bad about yourself ain’t your real friends.
• Most of us are fucking lunatics, one way or another. Some just hide it better than others.
• If you write to Dr. Ozzy to ask if something is right or wrong… you know it’s wrong.
• All drugs are basically the same—booze, pot, cocaine, heroin… whatever. They’re just different ways to escape from life. So before asking me if “a little bit” of this or that is safe in moderation, here’s my answer: do it if you want to, man, but don’t kid yourself. You ain’t kidding anyone else.
• Always get a second opinion—even if that means calling your doctor on a cell phone from six feet underground to ask him if he’s 100 per cent sure you’re dead.
Quiz Answers
Dr. Ozzy’s advice column appears every week in The Sunday Times and in select issues of Rolling Stone
Write to Dr. Ozzy:
[email protected] Quiz Answers
Award yourself one point for each correct answer, add up your total score, then see how you did here…
MAGIC MEDICINE
b). I ain’t kidding—you can even look up the British Medical Journal paper online. The scientists said they wanted “to assess the effects of didgeridoo playing on daytime sleepiness… by reducing collapsibility of the upper airways in patients with moderate obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome and snoring.” And I thought my job was fucking ridiculous.
a). They turn the poor old frog into juice by dropping it in a blender (they kill it and skin it first). They also spice it up with “white bean broth,” honey, raw aloe vera, and maca (an Andean root thing). If throwing up gives you a raging boner, it probably works a treat.
c). Makes sense, I suppose, ’cos bats have amazing night vision. Still, as one of the few people on this planet who have actually swallowed bat’s blood, I can vouch that it doesn’t have any special powers—otherwise I wouldn’t have needed cataract surgery in 2010.
a). This a terrible myth, ’cos it’s been used to justify rape, and it makes the disease spread much faster.
b). Not much of a surprise, this one. In the 1960s everyone tried to cure everything with LSD.
HEALTH NUT
a). They call it “fat” for a reason. One tablespoon of the stuff has about 120 calories, compared with 112 for ghee and 101 for butter (according to Nutrientfacts.com and Fitday.com).
All three. Or at least that’s the advice of a weird-sounding organisation called the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse. It says you can swallow less air by not chewing gum, eating your meals slower, and making sure your false choppers fit right.
a). The poor fucker who did the field work to come up with this number deserves the Victoria Cross, if you ask me (he works for the NDDIC, as above). But thank God this kind of information exists, ’cos next time I’m feeling intimidated by someone, I’ll remind myself that they burped or let their arse cheeks blow 14 times in the previous 24 hours.
b) and c). If you overdo it when you’re training, you can end up feeling like you’re wading through molten lead. When that happens, you’ve gotta slow down and see a doc, or you can do yourself some serious damage. Pregnant women and overweight people can also get heavy legs—as can anyone who stands or sits in the same position for too long.
b). The guy was so tough-as-nails, he never even warmed up before exercising. “Does a lion warm up when he’s hungry?” he once said. “No! He just goes out there and eats the sucker.” (Unlike LaLanne, Dr. Ozzy recommends frequent stretching.)
BEING BEAUTIFUL
a) and b). If you believe what you read on the internet, Cleopatra also used crocodile turds as a contraceptive. Hence the old Egyptian chat-up line, “Wanna come back to my place and see my dung?”
All three. They were recommended as baldness cures for Julius Caesar, who also tried to compensate for his thinning rug by going out and buying himself a red convertible chariot.
c). Generally speaking, if your car windows don’t have special UV protection, they’ll block most UVB rays—which tan and burn you the most—but not UVA rays, which give you wrinkles and cause so-called “commuter ageing.”
c). The Sultan of Brunei (according to The Sunday Times). He flew his barber from the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair to Brunei (7,000 miles) and gave him a private suite on Singapore Airlines to make sure he didn’t catch swine flu on the way. Seems perfectly sensible to me.
a). Which shouldn’t exactly come as a fucking surprise if you’ve ever been to the Czech Republic. The first “beer spa” opened at a brewery in Chodovz Plana, near Prague, back in 2006.
FLESH & BLOOD
b). His brothers did it ’cos they were jealous. They also nicked his coat and threw him down a mineshaft. They didn’t let him play their Xbox, either.
c). The mother was supposedly a Russian peasant, married to a guy named Feodor Vassilyev (her first name has been lost to history). According to Guinness World Records, she pumped out sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets between 1725 and 1765. Only two of the babies died in infancy. Feodor—otherwise known as the man with the Golden Balls—went on to re-marry and have another twenty kids.
a). According to news reports at the time, the victim (who wasn’t named) didn’t realise what had happened until she noticed a wet feeling under her shirt, pulled it up, and her nipple fell on the floor. She put it a bag and took it to hospital. It’s now back where it belongs.
c). “Marriage should be about losing arguments and winning relationships,” according to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a leading relationship coach.
c). Lina Medina’s parents took her to hospital, thinking she had a stomach tumor. It turned out she was seven months pregnant. She’s now in her seventies and lives in Peru. The reason Lina was able to have a kid was her very unusual case of “precocious puberty”—her first period came when she was still a toddler—although of course it’s beyond tragic that any man would impregnate her in the first place. The father was never identified, and the baby, a boy, was raised as her brother. He died in 1979 at the age of 40.
UNDER THE KNIFE
a) and c). The guy with the forked tongue—Erik Sprague—had it done on purpose, ’cos he wanted to look like a lizard. He had his teeth filed into fangs, too. He’s available for babysitting.
a) and c). The woman who injected lubricant into her face told ABC News: “By the following day [my whole face] was just completely inflamed. [The lubricant] expands, it’s like rubber, and your own collagen forms scar tissue around it… it looked like horrible blisters.” People who do this kind of thing to themselves suffer from a condition called “body dysmorphic disorder”—which means they drive themselves nuts about one particular part of their body, to the point where they’re willing to self-operate.
b). The
Annals of General Psychiatry says that “severe intentional eye self-injury is uncommon, but not rare” and that it’s usually a result of a drug freak-out psychosis, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and/or depression. Some patients have been found with a copy of the passage in Matthew’s Gospel, which says, “… if the right eye offends thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.”
a). They were known as “barber surgeons.” The most common service they provided was “bloodletting”—where you cut a gash in your arm and let your blood run out into a bucket. Personally, I’d have been happy with a short back and sides.
a). The poor guy, who was 70 years old and mentally ill, died from septicaemia within six days. The others are real cases written about in The Psychiatrist, although the bright spark with the bicycle changed his mind at the last minute—and ended up fracturing his skull instead.
DOCTOR! DOCTOR!
a). He was sacked and fined for making out prescriptions to himself, then booked himself into rehab. He wasn’t struck off, though—and he went on to kill over 200 patients, that we know of, at least.