After more than three decades with Parkinson’s disease, actor Michael J. Fox recently shared his thoughts on life and death, expressing a desire for a peaceful end.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, the 64-year-old actor, who was diagnosed in 1991 at age 29, said he has come to terms with his condition.
“I’d like to just not wake up one day. That’d be really cool,” Fox shared. “I don’t want it to be dramatic. I don’t want to trip over furniture, smash my head.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, Parkinson’s is a movement disorder where nerve cells in the brain slowly break down or die. Symptoms can start slowly with tremors and can cause stiffness, slowing of movement and trouble with balance, which heightens the risk of falling.
Fox described the disease’s progression as unpredictable.
“There’s no timeline, there’s no series of stages that you go through,” he said. “It’s much more mysterious and enigmatic.”
Since his diagnosis, Fox has become a prominent advocate for research, founding the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000. The foundation has invested more than $1.75 billion in research to date, Parade notes.
The disease has led to numerous serious injuries for Fox due to reduced motor control.
“It’s absolutely incredible the stuff I broke,” Fox said. “In a three-year period I broke my elbow, I broke my hand, I got a big infection in my hand and I almost lost my finger.”
He said he also broke his cheekbone and required a shoulder replacement. An infection in his hand after breaking several small bones also forced him to give up playing the guitar.
Despite the challenges, Fox maintains a lighthearted perspective.
“I take it easy now. I don’t walk that much anymore,” he said. “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.”
This story was written with the assistance of AI.
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