Ozzy Osbourne reveals hand surgery was for potentially deadly staph infection
Ozzy Osbourne has revealed that his hand surgery earlier this month was for a potentially deadly staph infection.
Speaking for the first time about his infection to Rolling Stone, Ozzy said he “freaked out” when his right thumb swelled “to the size of a f***in lightbulb” overnight following a gig in Salt Lake City.
Completely unaware of the severity of his condition, Ozzy said that when his wife Sharon took him to the emergency room he “didn’t feel sick” and was “cracking jokes.”
Doctors discovered that he had three separate staph infections (caused by bacteria called staphylococcus) in his thumb, which had spread to his middle finger.
Ozzy explained: “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 f***ing making jokes?' So I said, ‘Well, it’s my hand.’
“They’re all extremely, deadly serious about it. 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.'”
Reflecting on the surgery, Ozzy said: “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.
“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 fing kills you. It may sound fed up what I’m saying to you, but he was really concerned about checking my blood.”
Asking doctors where he got the infection from, Ozzy continued: “The doctor said to me, ‘Can you remember talking to someone and shaking hands?' Well, I do that meet and greet at the gig and I must shake f***ing 200 hands a day. He said, ‘That explains it.'”
Ozzy spent nearly a week in hospital where he was treated with antibiotics and he also devoured plenty of ice cream.
He was forced to postpone the final four tour dates of his No More Tour 2 North American tour until the summer of 2019.
“I’m going to make those shows up next year," he told Rolling Stone. "It could have been a lot worse. I could have been dead.”