Michael's future shocks: HOW I BEAT MY DARKEST DAYS

THE ACCIDENT THAT NEARLY ROBBED THE AILING ACTOR OF ALL HOPE

- Megan McChesney

In less than two months’ time, when the calendar flips over to 2021, Michael J. Fox will mark a curious milestone in his life. The boyish-faced Hollywood star, who shot to fame as the intrepid Marty McFly in the movie Back to the Future, will have lived as long with Parkinson’s disease as he has without it.

The Canadian-born actor was 30 years old and in the prime of his life when he was delivered the news that he’d developed a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system with no known cure.

For most people receiving such a diagnosis, the news is understandably remembered as the darkest day of their lives. But for ever-optimistic Michael, that day didn’t arrive until two years ago.

In his new memoir, No Time Like the Future, the father of four has opened up about the devastating incident in 2018 that temporarily caused him to lose faith in himself and his hope for the future.

Already struggling with the worsening effects of Parkinson’s – from tremors and rigidity to short-term memory problems – another on-going health condition had finally caught up with him. For years doctors had been monitoring a noncancerous tumour on his spine. Suddenly, it had started growing fast, causing him intense pain.