Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy (36 page)

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…

A
s 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]
sunday-times.co.uk

Quiz Answers

Award yourself one point for each correct answer, add up your total score, then see how you did
here
…

M
AGIC
M
EDICINE

1. 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.
   

2. 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.
   

3. 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.
   

4. a). This a terrible myth, ’cos it’s been used to justify rape, and it makes the disease spread much faster.
   

5. b). Not much of a surprise, this one. In the 1960s everyone tried to cure everything with LSD.
   

H
EALTH
N
UT

1. 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
   ).
   

2. 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.
   

3. 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.
   

4. 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.
   

5. 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.)
   

B
EING
B
EAUTIFUL

1. 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?”
   

2. 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.
   

3. 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.”
   

4. 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.
   

5. 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.