I watched No Escape From Now, about the health setbacks Ozzy Osbourne faced in 2019, which included his Parkinson’s diagnosis. On Paramount+ in the US. I watched it on Disney channel in Canada. I think a lot about his pain. But also the combination of his pain and illness. The impact it had on his life. And how this reflects also on all our lives.
Directed by BAFTA-winner Tania Alexander, and produced by Echo Velvet in partnership with the Osbourne familyand MTV Entertainment Studios, the two-hour documentary offers fans an intimate, all-access look at Ozzy’s extraordinary resilience in the face of chronic health challenges.
The film traces Ozzy’s journey following a life-altering fall in 2019, which forced the cancellation of his farewell tour. Viewers will witness Ozzy’s grueling recovery process, his battle with Parkinson’s, and how music became his medicine.
“It got me out of the blues,” Ozzy shares in the film, reflecting on his 2019 collaboration with Post Malone on Take What You Want. “That was the best medicine I ever had at that point.” Source
He experienced grueling pain and mobility issues from neck pain resulting from surgeries. More so than the Parkinson’s he was being treated and managing. Although I can’t imagine that was easy either. But the pain he endured practically and did at times cripple him. His son talked about how he went into surgery sitting up and laughing and came out a different person.
He had to cancel tours- a thing he loved and lived for. He fell into states of depression. And how he got out of that- was his music, when he could. Doing some of the most introspective music he has ever come out with.
Pain takes and takes
Chronic pain is a relentless beast that takes so much from our lives and it doesn’t seem to give much back.
I wrote so much about that but here is a short poem I wrote about it a while ago:
It Took
It took, took and took
From me.
But it never, ever took
Me
It tried,
With fire raging; skin and bone.
It tried,
with darkness; deep and alone.
It took, took and took
From me.
But it never, ever took
Me
It tired,
With sharpness; body and brain
It tried,
With weakness; can’t sustain
It took, took and took
From me.
But it never, ever took
Me
Because it tries to take and take and take- be we have a resilience that is beyond compare. Beyond comprehension even. A persistence even I can’t fathom sometimes. In that we endure. And we take back some of what we lost in ways we can manage. In ways we can do the things. New ways to accomplish old tasks. Slower. Paced. Not every day. Rest in there. Changed how we do it. But take some things back.
What we take back
What Ozzy was able to take back he took back by painful inches. He demanded some of his music back and he took it back. Not all of it. Not his concerts which he had to cancel. But songs. An album. Creating things he would not otherwise have done. He may not have been able to go on tour. But he still created and that is beautiful. And he had to do it differently. And it was difficult. Brutally so, but it pushed back the force of his depression in the face of the brutality of his chronic pain. And we can’t know that journey he had. Or what he endured. Or the cost he paid.
I took back my writing and art. It took a lot of things- chronic illness and pain took my work. But I took back my writing and art. Not every day. I take it back by inches. My pain is not like Ozzy’s was. Not the same type. Not from a surgery. Not the same area. But chronic. And chronic pain has a cost. A persistent, relentless, endless cost. I can’t measure his pain. Or mine. My cost though- I know well enough. Depression I also knew so very well. Such a familiar friend depression is to pain.
But when I lost my work due to other things- like vestibular issues on top of the pain and chronic migraine. I lost income. I lost my sense of self. So I started to create. I started to write more. I started to do art. I started to express myself. This was after I had recovered enough to be capable of such things.
We demand back Things. Because we want something to fight for. We want meaning. In the battle to survive that which has no meaning we demand meaning. But we have to fight through the pain, symptoms and fatigue to have anything. And it is an immense challenge. For some of us, like Ozzy, unfathomable in his achievement but he did it to have some small joy in the midst of the depression pain caused him.
The losses he felt. The depression. The isolation. The mobility issues. All these things are so familiar. Just different levels of the same pains and sorrows that come with chronic illness and chronic pain.
I always say we have to fight for inches of life. And it isn’t easy. It just isn’t easy. But it does beat back the beast of depression. It will not conquer the pain, the illness or symptoms. It will just give us a semblance of a life here and there. This day or that day. You have to fight for the things in your life to the capacity you have. My functionality is very erratic- pain ebbs and flows, fatigue is so intense and all the symptoms a constant tangled web. I can’t do much with my day but I do what I can. When I can. As I can.
He endured so much. We all endure so much. But we will fight for the things in our lives that make it worth living. That I know.
Chronically Nikki 
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