Courageous Michael J. Fox is struggling to walk amid his increasingly difficult battle with Parkinson’s disease. But the ailing 60-year-old is forging ahead — despite not believing a cure for the crippling condition will happen in his lifetime.
The Back to the Future star reveals “every step is now like a frigging math problem,” after enduring three decades with the nerve disease and the devastating effects of spinal surgery.
His ordeal was driven home in stark reality as he used a cane to navigate a Los Angeles sidewalk March 18.
“There is no way to put a shine on my circumstance,” he bluntly explains.
Though he’s raised more than $1 billion for research to stamp out Parkinson’s through his Michael J. Fox Foundation, the actor admits he likely won’t see the defeat of the illness, which was first diagnosed in 1991.
Even as the once energetic actor wrestled with worsening tremors in 2018, he was also rocked by the discovery of a tumor on his spine, which was unrelated to Parkinson’s but required risky surgery.
Not long after the procedure, the shaky star fell and needed 19 screws to mend the shattered bones in his arm!
An insider confides, “His balance is completely off because his muscles freeze up.”
Now, the former Family Ties teen says he can no longer play his beloved guitar and is often forced to rely on a wheelchair.
“It’s a progressive disease that’s slow, drawn-out and painful,” explains New York’s Dr. Stuart Fischer, who has not treated Michael.
Even Fox has admitted, “My optimism is suddenly finite.”
