A database of news and information about people with disabilities and disability issues...
Copyright statement: Unless otherwise stated, all posts on this blog continue to be the property of the original author/publication/Web site, which can be found via the link at the beginning of each post.
Ten years after shocking the world with the announcement that he has Parkinson's, Michael J. Fox is aggressively fighting the disease – and says he still sees a bright future ahead.
"Based on how I feel now," the star tells PEOPLE in its new issue, "I'll be okay for at least 10 more years."
Since leaving Spin City in 2000 – two years after revealing his Parkinson's diagnosis on the cover of PEOPLE magazine – Fox, 47, has been focused on raising his four kids with wife Tracy Pollan, 48, and helping The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research pour $140 million into fighting the disease.
Fox has found a successful combination of medications to keep his symptoms under control. But, he says, the progression of the disease is unavoidable, and "at some point every day" he enters a state of what doctors call "bradykinesia" – in which his arms hang heavy at his side.
But the actor tells PEOPLE he doesn't want anyone feeling sorry for him. In fact, Fox says, having Parkinson's "is part of an amazing life." And it's not "an otherwise amazing life," he clarifies. "It's part of what makes my life amazing."
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From a sneak peek at the People magazine cover story:
