Beloved actor Michael J. Fox is acknowledging how difficult his more than 30-year battle with Parkinson’s disease has become.
“I’m not gonna be 80,” the Back to the Future star said in a preview for an upcoming episode of the American current affairs program CBS Sunday Morning, according to Page Six.
In the clip, Journalist Jane Pauley tells Fox that he has “not squandered” but that his condition will eventually “make the call” as to when it’s his time to go.
“Yeah, it’s, it’s banging on the door,” the actor said.
“I’m not gonna lie. It’s gettin’ hard, it’s gettin’ harder. It’s gettin’ tougher. Every day it’s tougher.”
Fox revealed that he had surgery to remove a benign tumour on his spine, but the procedure “messed up” his walking and so he started to “break” other parts of his body, including his arm, elbow, face and hand.
He added that the “big killer” of Parkinson’s disease is “falling” and can also be “aspirating food and getting pneumonia”, pointing out that it is “all these subtle ways that gets you.”
You don’t die from Parkinson’s. You die with Parkinson’s,” he said. “So – so I’ve been – I’ve been thinking about the mortality of it.”
The actor was diagnosed with the brain disorder at just 29. He has since become a leading advocate for research on the condition, with the launch of the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 to help educate the public and fund studies.
He has previously revealed that he does not fear death.
“I’m really blunt with people about cures. When they ask me if I will be relieved of Parkinson’s in my lifetime, I say, ‘I’m 60 years old, and science is hard. So, no,’” he admitted in an AARP magazine profile in December 2021.
“I am genuinely a happy guy. I don’t have a morbid thought in my head — I don’t fear death. At all.”
Image credit: Instagram
This article first appeared on Over60.