Despite his ongoing battle with Parkinson’s disease, Michael J. Fox recently announced that “good things are happening.”
On Tuesday, Fox spoke to People at the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Country Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson’s event.
“You know, my daughter’s getting married too … good things are happening, and life is good. And so it’s been a good year, for sure,” he said.
However, it certainly hasn’t been all butterflies and rainbows for the Michael J. Fox Foundation founder.
“There’s been a lot of challenges,” he revealed. “A lot of physical challenges these days have been different bits, but just that I had a lot of stuff … I had a movie, a documentary and a lot of obligations.”
Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s Battle
Fox has been coping with Parkinson’s disease for over 30 years now. This relentless disorder impacts the nervous system, causing sufferers to experience tremors, stiffness, and other serious symptoms.
“A lot of things have been a lot of effort … And so it was a tough year, but a good year, in each of the challenges [that] came up,” he said.
Thankfully, he has the ongoing support of his wife and family during these difficult times.
“With the help of family, with the help of people that I work with, I’ve been able to meet those challenges and go beyond them and do new things,” he said. “And the whole thing is just keep having new experiences, whether it’s experiences that push forward, what we’re trying to do and our mission with foundation.”
The Michael J. Fox Foundation seeks to “accelerate the next generation of Parkinson’s disease (PD) treatments” and “[find] a cure for Parkinson’s disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to [ensure] the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson’s today.”
“Parkinson’s patients are the experts on what we have,” Fox stated on the foundation’s website. “We have a responsibility as patients to share our experience — what works for us, what we respond to, what we can contribute to research.”