Michael J. Fox "Feelin'Alright"

This is totally an awesome story!  Many of us think we have a difficult life but just take a look at what Michael J. Fox is doing now. This is what can happen when you believe in yourself and help others to do the same.  Read the article below:

More than two decades after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Michael J.   Fox gets by—even thrives—with a little luck, a lot of love and loads of laughter

By DAVID HOCHMAN / Photographs by JEFF LIPSKY



Technically, Michael J. Fox is not supposed to be enjoying himself as much as he is these days. When the actor was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease at age 30 after noticing a twitch in his left pinkie, his doctors told him he had 10 more years to work, tops. That was 21 years ago. “The implication was that I was going to be in an invalid state,” Fox says.Without question, the actor’s illness has advanced. During a long, candid conversation in his New York City office about his health, career, family and philanthropic efforts, Fox’s body never stops moving. His right knee swings, his hands tremble, his shoulders seesaw up and down. “It’s like your gyroscope is off,” he says when asked what Parkinson’s feels like. “I can be shaky. I can be slow. I can wake up with festination”—an involuntary shuffling of the feet—“and I’ll say, ‘This is going to be a struggle today.’ ”  Fox and his wife of 24 years, actress Tracy Pollan, and their four children—Sam, 23, twins Aquinnah and Schuyler, 18, and Esmé, 11—face daily challenges. Family outings need to be timed to Fox’s medication schedule. “Sometimes the kids will need their dad’s help and he’ll say, ‘I’m not feeling great right now,’ ” says Pollan, who admits she’s more of a worrier than her husband is. “But on the flip side, the first thing he does is go back to the kids when he’s feeling good. It teaches them patience and empathy.”

UNSTOPPABLE From top: Fox, wife Tracy and kids; offering Senate testimony in 1999; with Heather Locklear on Spin City; striking a chord in Back to the Future.

Scattered about Fox’s office are mementos of a life well lived: a photo of the actor playing guitar at a fund-raiser with The Who. Fox on the ice with hockey legend Bobby Orr. Winged statuettes honoring every aspect of his work. Each item brings out a boyish exuberance, as if Fox still can’t believe his own luck. “Tracy and I were talking the other day about all the people we know who since my diagnosis have died of cancer or had terrible things happen to them. If you would have told them 10 years ago you can have that or you can have what I have, they would have taken what I have. That’s only to say we all get our own bag of hammers.”

Michael Andrew Fox—the “J” came years later; he thought it sounded cooler—was born in Edmonton, Alberta, on June 9, 1961. His father, Bill, once worked as a jockey and was a sergeant in the Canadian Army; his mother, Phyllis, was a payroll clerk. Mike, as he’s known to friends and family, was the fourth of five children.

Family Ties, about the clash of values of liberal, former-hippie parents and their conservative offspring, arrived after America’s cultural consciousness had shifted from Haight-Ashbury to Wall Street, and the show ran for seven seasons. President Ronald Reagan called it his favorite TV program, and Fox, who won three Emmy Awards for his role, parlayed his success into a hit movie career, with popcorn classics like Teen Wolf and the Back to the Future trilogy. A slide into drinking, carousing and overspending followed. “By 21, I was earning six figures a week, and by 23, I had a Ferrari,” he says. “It was nuts. I never stopped to figure that out.” In 1986 he met Pollan, a nice girl from Long Island and the sister of The Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan, when she guest-starred as his girlfriend onFamily Ties. They married in 1988. With Tracy’s insistence and encouragement, Fox quit drinking in 1992, which prompted a new outlook on his success. “You’re not just a lottery winner,” says Fox. “You have to respect the work you do and the work others do and how you got there.”

“I’m aware that there are others who don’t feel so good and can’t express themselves the way I can. That’s no small factor in the way I’ve been able to deal with this.”

For his 50th birthday, in 2011, Pollan put together a yearbook for Fox, who never graduated from high school. He says, “She had all these people sign it, from Tony Bennett to Bruce Springsteen to my sixth-grade teacher to friends of mine from home.” Fox is clearly moved talking about Pollan’s support. “Yeah,” he says, “my wife is great to me.”

“The attention Michael has brought to Parkinson’s research has sparked a complete revolution,” says the foundation’s chief executive officer, Todd Sherer. “Pharmaceutical companies are more focused than ever on finding treatments quickly, and curing PD is job one for some of the best minds in neuroscience.”

Fox has testified before Congress and backed efforts to double the National Institutes of Health’s research budget while advocating for speedier drug development. “The last thing this is for Michael is a vanity project,” says Deborah W. Brooks, the foundation’s cofounder and executive vice chairman. “His attitude has always been, ‘Let’s do this right. People are counting on us.’”

Fox knows returning to TV might be tiring, so he has arranged for “a few trapdoors,” like built-in days off when he’s not in a scene. He’s also looking ahead to new adventures: Visiting the Egyptian pyramids is on his bucket list. He wants his kids to be happy and to see them accomplish something meaningful. Above all, he’s trying not to take himself—or his condition—too seriously. Take clapping, for instance. “If I’m at events and I’m clapping,” he says with a smile, “my mind will say, ‘Stop clapping,’ but I just keep going. Tracy says, ‘You’re always the last one clapping.’ I swear, it’s not out of appreciation—it’s out of disintegration. You have to laugh at that.”

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