Trembling, flabby muscles, pain. These are just three of the symptoms that people with Parkinson’s endure every day. So does “Back to the Future” star Michael J. Fox (61).
At just 29, Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s shortly after landing the hit role of Marty McFly in the world-famous ’80s hit movie “Back to the Future” took over and traveled through space and time in a DeLorean alongside Don Brown (Christopher Lloyd, 84).
That means the actor has been battling the disease for more than 30 years. In the meantime he has come to terms with the fact that this has made his life difficult.
Michael J. Fox doesn’t let Parkinson’s get him down. Here he speaks on stage at Comic Con in October 2022 in New York Chity
“I’m not going to be 80,” Michael J. Fox said in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning. The disease will definitely “make the call” for the actor to go. “He (death, ed.) knocks on the door. I won’t lie, it’s getting hard, harder and harder. It’s getting harder every day.”
Parkinson is caused by the deterioration of a small part of the brain. Brain cells die off and the brain itself is no longer sufficiently supplied with dopamine. A predominantly excitatory neurotransmitter. It actually controls emotional but also motor reactions.
Worse still, Michael J. Fox was also diagnosed with a benign tumor on his spine. He decided to have surgery and removed the tumor. But after the surgery everything was different. Since then, he has been limited in his ability to walk. The result: multiple broken bones. Including his arm, elbow, facial bones and hand.
The “big killer” of Parkinson’s disease is falls. But also “breathing in food”, i.e. when food accidentally gets into the lungs and also “pneumonia”. All of these are just “subtle ways that get you.”
But he is not afraid of death. Instead, he devoted his life to researching the disease, even founding the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 to educate the public about Parkinson’s and to fund studies.
“I’m very open with people when it comes to my healing. When they ask me if I can still get rid of Parkinson’s in this lifetime, I say, ‘The science is hard, so no,'” Michael J. Fox revealed in an interview with AARP magazine in December 2021.
“I’m really a happy person. I don’t have any morbid thoughts in my head and I’m not afraid of death, not at all.”
Then the 61-year-old says with certainty: “You don’t die of Parkinson’s, you die with Parkinson’s.”
