Michael J Fox opens up on future of Parkinson’s battle: “I’d like to just not wake up one day”
Michael J Fox has poignantly opened up about the future with his battle with Parkinson’s disease, admitting: “I’d like to just not wake up one day.”
The actor, whose most prolific roles included playing Marty McFly in Back to the Future, was diagnosed with an early-onset form of the neurological condition at the age of 29 and has lived with it now for over three decades, defying many odds as he has now reached the age of 64.
Opening up on the progression of his disease in a new interview with The Sunday Times, Fox said he avoids thinking about death but that he likes to “take it easy now”.
He admitted: “I don’t walk that much any more. I can walk but it’s not pretty and it’s a bit dangerous. So I just roll that into my life, you know — no pun intended.”
However, when asked about his prospects for the future, the actor gave an honest but poignant answer. “There’s no timeline, there’s no series of stages that you go through — not in the same way that you would, say, with prostate cancer. It’s much more mysterious and enigmatic,” he explained.
Fox then continued: “There are not many people who have had Parkinson’s for 35 years,” before adding, “I’d like to just not wake up one day. That’d be really cool. I don’t want it to be dramatic. I don’t want to trip over furniture, smash my head.”
But despite the starkness of his diagnosis, the actor was still keen to express the amount of positivity that still remains in his life, mainly from his fans. “The disease sucks, but … people don’t feel sorry for me,” he noted. “They don’t think I’m pathetic. They see me as — well, I couldn’t tell you how they see me, but I sense that they see me as a positive force.”
Since his diagnosis with Parkinson’s in 1991, Fox has become a prolific campaigner for the cause and established the Michael J Fox Foundation 25 years ago to boost attempts to find a cure for the disease.
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