Michael J. Fox on Parkinson's: 'It's Banging on the Door'

Michael J. Fox has lived with Parkinson's disease for more than three decades now, but in a new interview, the beloved actor says he doesn't think it'll give him two more. "I’m not gonna be 80. I’m not gonna be 80," Fox, 61, told Jane Pauley in the CBS Sunday Morning interview. He says that since having a spinal surgery in 2018 to take out a tumor not related to Parkinson's, the risky procedure left him in a tough position. He had to learn to walk again and has had a number of falls since and has broken multiple bones, he said, per the Los Angeles Times. "It sucks having Parkinson's."

Falling, he explains, "is a big killer with Parkinson’s," as are "aspirating food and getting pneumonia. ... All these subtle ways that get ya. You don’t die from Parkinson’s—you die with Parkinson’s." "It's been 30+ years; not many of us that have had this disease for 30 years," he said, but now "it’s banging on the door. I mean, I’m not gonna lie. It’s getting hard, it's getting harder. It’s getting tougher. Every day it’s tougher. But that’s the way it is. I mean, you know, who do I see about that?” (More Michael J. Fox stories.)