Michael J. Fox Says He Almost Lost His Hand Due to an Infection

Michael J. Fox has been open about his health battles, including his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis at age 29, but now he’s revealing other medical setbacks he’s experienced over the years.

While speaking with Town & Country magazine, in an interview published Thursday, the Back to the Future actor shared that he has broken his arm and shoulder, smashed his orbital bone and cheek, and broken his hand in recent years.

“My hand got infected and then I almost lost it,” Fox said. “It was a tsunami of misfortune.”

He also previously revealed in his 2020 book, No Time Like the Future, that doctors found a spinal tumor unrelated to his Parkinson’s that threatened to paralyze him in 2018. After undergoing surgery and months of physical therapy, he was able to start walking again, but with challenges.

Shortly after, he ended up tripping while he was alone in his apartment and broke his other arm. It’s an accident that Fox said “was nothing” compared to what he would experience in the years that followed.

Earlier this year, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, the actor said that falling “is a big killer with Parkinson’s. Falling and aspirating food and getting pneumonia — all these subtle ways that get you. You don’t die from Parkinson’s; you die with Parkinson’s. So I’ve been thinking of the mortality of it. I’m not going to be 80. I’m not going to 80.”

Though he can’t control the future, he’s still not afraid of what lies ahead.

“One day I’ll run out of gas,” Fox told Town & Country. “One day I’ll just say, ‘It’s not going to happen. I’m not going out today.’ If that comes, I’ll allow myself that.”

He added, “I’m 62 years old. Certainly, if I were to pass away tomorrow, it would be premature, but it wouldn’t be unheard of. And so, no, I don’t fear that.”

The documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, which was released in May, also recounts Fox’s life story from childhood, to his success in Hollywood in the ’80s, and his battle with Parkinson’s disease.