But, he says, “I found myself sitting on that floor going, ‘This is fucked-up.

He had worked hard for decades to prop himself up with positivity and hope. That shell now lay in invisible pieces all over the kitchen floor. And for years after his diagnosis in 1991, he walked in a kind of exoskeleton of his own design, built of optimism and humor, of love and high spirits-Parkinson’s disease was a gift, he had said. In the 1980s, he buried himself in work and surrounded himself with an entourage of friends who liked to party and women who liked to date Michael J. And Nina, his former assistant and now manager, seems never to be far.īut in that moment, he was something he hadn’t been for a long time: alone. Normally there are people around him to help-Tracy, of course, or one or more of their four children, who range in age from 19 to 31. It didn’t.) He had landed hard on his left arm, shattering the bone, leaving him frozen in pain on the cold tile floor, struggling to reach his phone in the back pocket of his sweatshorts. (The surgery, too, could have left him paralyzed. He was home by himself-unusual for him, especially then, just four months into his recovery from a surgery to remove a tumor from his spine that could have paralyzed him. Two years ago, in this kitchen, around this time of the morning, 6:30, he fell. He shuffled down the short hall to the kitchen. Today, though, he rose.Ĭlick here to gain access to exclusive Men’s Health content, including celebrity interviews, workouts, and diet plans. Sometimes, if he wakes up and the storms in his limbs and torso are quiet, he can fall back asleep. It’s better when the motion of his body moves against an immovable force, like the hard floor of his apartment, high above Central Park. Plus, the mattress feels too forgiving against his writhing back.

He’s nearly 30 years into Parkinson’s disease, and the dyskinesias from his medications often cause him to tug and pull at the sheets until they are a sweaty tangle, which can’t be pleasant for Tracy, sleeping softly next to him.

But yes, he woke up feeling pretty good.įox was on the floor because a lot of nights a bed just doesn’t work. He can be relentlessly happy, and that can be hard for people to understand, given . . . everything. Fox cracked his eyelids open, the first thing he saw was Gus. Gus-big old Gus, a mutt made mostly of Great Dane, black-and-white, a savior of men, breathing deep, sleepy, dog-breath snorts-doesn’t always sleep in the master bedroom, but last night he did, and when Michael J. HE WOKE UP on the floor this morning, early.

Michael j fox memoir