By Michaela Gordoni
BACK TO THE FUTURE star Michael J. Fox is sharing how he stays positive amid his Parkinson’s battle.
“It’s a great opportunity that I’ve been given to do things and to help people and to motivate other people to get involved,” he explained in an Entertainment Tonight interview with Little Big Town’s Kimberly Schlapman this month.
He explained why he stays positive despite a negative prognosis.
“If you imagine the worst-case scenario and it actually happens, you’ve lived it twice,” the actor explained. “So I just take each day as it comes, and of course, I have Tracy and the kids and this wonderful organization of people supporting me. So, and acknowledging that is really important.”
He wants other Parkinson’s patients to know that they are the “expert” on their own experience with the disease.
“Don’t let anybody else tell you what you should be feeling or what you do feel or that it’s not anything that can be helped or can be addressed,” he said. “We have to take the reins and drive the thing forward.”
He acknowledges that he’s not the only one who has bad days. It’s very hard on his wife, Tracy.
“She doesn’t have this…but she lives it and…I plead guilty to not always giving her credit for the fact that sometimes it’s just sad. Sometimes it’s just uncomfortable, and and if I’m positive, I can’t just say, ‘Well, you have to be positive’ if you’re not positive,” Fox said.
“I mean, she might say, ‘I’m having a crappy day,’ or ‘We can’t do something we liked to do’ or ‘I can’t do the things I used to do.’ I can’t hike anymore. I can’t do the things we used to,” he said. “And that’s hard, and we have to mourn those things.”
Their four kids bring Fox a lot of “joy.”
“That’s the secret of kids,” he said. “Oh, your kids, they bring you so much joy.”
Related: BACK TO THE FUTURE Star Michael J. Fox Talks New Documentary, STILL: ‘I Love My Family’
Since its creation, Fox’s foundation has helped raise over $2 billion for Parkinson’s research. This month, the foundation hosted “A Country Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson’s” benefit concert in Nashville. Little Big Town, Sheryl Crow and Jason Isbell performed. Country singer Kelsea Ballerini, actor Chase Stokes and Olympian Scott Hamilton were a few of the celebrities in attendance. The benefit raised over $1 million.
Fox’s hope and determination are at the heart of his organization. The foundation’s website says it leverages its “core values of optimism, tenacity, collaboration, boldness, adaptability and curiosity in problem-solving to work on behalf of the 6 million people worldwide living with Parkinson’s.”
As Fox courageously battles his disease with optimism, he reminds us that thinking about negative scenarios only causes more harm than good. Sometimes, we just need to take things one day at a time.
Read Next: How Michael J. Fox Went From ‘Pain, Regret’ to Gratitude
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