Michael J. Fox Opens Up About New Health Problems Amid Parkinson’s Battle

The mysterious health problem became so serious that the “Back to the Future” star had to get spinal surgery.

“So I had surgery, and an intense amount of physical therapy after. I did it all, and eventually people asked me to do some acting,” he said.

However, Fox was back in the hospital in August after falling down in his kitchen on the way to work, resulting in 19 pins and a plate in his arm. He said he used the accident as a reminder to keep his optimism about his health in check.

 “I do think the more unexpected something is, the more there is to learn from it. In my case, what was it that made me skip down the hallway to the kitchen thinking I was fine when I’d been in a wheelchair six months earlier? It’s because I had certain optimistic expectations of myself, and I’d had results to bear out those expectations, but I’d had failures too. And I hadn’t given the failures equal weight,” he said.

“I was so scared. I was so unfamiliar with Parkinson’s. Someone is saying your life is going to be completely changed. Yeah? When? I’m fine now but back then I wasn’t in the ‘I’m fine now.’ I was in the ‘I’m going to be bad,’” he said. “And it wasn’t until ’94 that I started getting it. That’s when I started to accept the disease — and acceptance doesn’t mean resignation. It means understanding and dealing straightforwardly.”