Michael J Fox Reveals His Decades-Long Battle with Parkinson's Has Affected His Memorization Skills

Nov 10, 2020 by apost team

Michael J. Fox is an actor known for his work in television and movies. He is also known for his life with Parkinson's Disease. Although the actor has been public with his disease-related challenges for decades, Parkinson's has recently begun to cause a symptom that interferes even more with his acting career. He recently shed light on his new challenges in an interview with People Magazine this month. 

Michael J. Fox was a popular choice for leading characters in the 80s and 90s. Who can forget Fox's iconic role in the Back to the Future movie franchise which gained a huge fan and remains a landmark movie in Hollywood even today? Many more television viewers will fondly recall his starring role in Family Ties. He continues to be a household name for many people even today thanks to his incredible acting skills, but his name is well-known also due to his courage in facing his unique challenges head-on. 

Bombshell Revelation

In 1998, Fox made an announcement that stirred the entertainment world. No one could anticipate the widespread impact of this news. The actor had been privately living with Parkinson's Disease since 1991, as per a CBS News article from 1998. He was only 37 at the time, which is a rare age to be diagnosed with the disease. "It's very uncommon to get Parkinson's disease below the age of 40 but it's not unheard of," Neurologist Dr. Stanley Fahn told CBS, "about 11 percent of our patients had onset before the age of 40."

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Although Fox was committed to remaining in his field, he confessed various symptoms stemming from his condition. The most noticeable of these symptoms were rigidity and tremors. In March 1997, he underwent surgery to tackle his most prominent and severe symptoms, which when combined with the help of medication and therapy, was more effective in controlling the disease. However, Parkinson's can only be managed and not cured. Despite these struggles, Michael Fox was able to continue giving his time and energy to other television and film projects. 

Post-Parkinson's Projects

Since his diagnosis, Fox's acting career has had some notable roles. He portrayed a leading character on the popular sitcom Spin City from 1996 to 2001. The famous actor has also worked on the show The Good Wife as a guest star from 2010 to 2016. However, Micheal Fox is also known for his Micheal J. Fox Foundation, whose aim is to find a cure for Parkinson's disease through research, as well as finding therapies to help people live better lives with the disease. 

Parkinson's Disease is a progressive, degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. Although Fox has been able to halt this progression with medication, the disease has continued to progress nonetheless. Recently, he revealed that this condition has affected one more significant part of his life in an interview with People.

Fox's Progression

Parkinson's Disease began with rigidity and tremors that impacted Fox's ability to move early on after his diagnosis. Now, the Parkinson's has impaired his short-term memory, so Fox has difficulty memorizing lines. The once-quick-study confessed that he recently struggled with a few scripts.

"I always had a real proficiency for lines and memorization. And I had some extreme situations where the last couple of jobs I did were actually really word-heavy parts. I struggled during both of them," he admits.

Amid all these health changes, Fox faced another challenge in the last few years. Doctors found a spinal tumor in 2018 that had been causing him immense pain and needed to be operated upon. Fortunately, the surgery went well, and he has recovered from this condition. It was not an easy time, however, as he had to learn to walk all over again in a long and grueling 4-month process, he tells People. 

After this, he also suffered a bad fall, which was his "darkest" moment. While he was physically healing during these difficult times, Michael says he understood that "“optimism is really rooted in gratitude." He added, "Optimism is sustainable when you keep coming back to gratitude, and what follows from that is acceptance," and continued by saying,

"Accepting that this thing has happened, and you accept it for what it is. It doesn’t mean that you can’t endeavor to change. It doesn’t mean you have to accept it as a punishment or a penance, but just put it in its proper place. Then see how much the rest of your life you have to thrive in, and then you can move on."

Since Fox's condition has made it challenging to play the guitar or sketch, he has found another creative outlet: writing. Fox has recently completed his fourth autobiography. It is slated for publication soon.

He will also be turning 60 next year, and loves focusing on his family more than anything else. He is married to Tracy Pollan, and they share 4 children: son Sam, 31, his twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler who are both 25, and daughter Esmé who is 19. While acting may or may not be in his future, Micheal is grateful for his family and his life. 

"So the last couple of years have been trickier than most," he elaborates. "But I have things that I've been blessed with that are just incredible. Life is rich. Life is good."

What do you think of Micheal Fox's story? Are you inspired by him? Let us know your comments below, and be sure to share this story with your friends and family so they too may be inspired by this amazing actor.