Michael J. Fox has opened up about his Parkinson’s prognosis.
The actor revealed that when he first made his diagnosis public in 1998, his doctors forecast roughly a decade of functionality.
Physicians were "hopeful that Fox will be functional for at least another 10 years and maybe well into old age", Michael, 62, told People magazine.
However, 26 years later, he believes it was partly his inner approach to his illness that helped him push through.
"What I believed then and what I believe now, I might not put it in the same words, but you can do anything. Anything," Michael told People magazine.
"You don't have to follow other people's prognostications for what life is going to be. Life's going to be what you make it."
In 2023, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which he launched in 2000, made a research breakthrough and found a biomarker that can indicate whether a person has Parkinson's before symptoms appear.
"It was one of the few times I cried about what we were doing," Michael shared. "We wanted to find a way that we can diagnose the disease before the symptoms are there.
"Because then we could treat it, and you'd never have it. It was a big break - and a great moment."
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