Lucky Man

by Michael J. Fox

  The doctors had asked me if I'd ever worked with or been exposed to a litany of metallic-based chemicals or abused any opiate-based drugs such as heroin, laudanum, or morphine compounds; some young heroin addicts have developed advanced Parkinsonism after using a synthetic version of the drug containing the chemical compound MPTP. The answer to all of these questions was no. There was also the possibility a head injury had been responsible; I'd suffered several concussions playing hockey, and I couldn't help thinking of Muhammad Ali, whose Parkinson's I assumed, perhaps falsely, may be related to the countless punishing blows he received in the ring. But the doctors all seemed quick to dismiss head trauma as a factor in the development of my symptoms.

  Even if I hadn't knowingly done something stupid to put me at risk, there were times when I did fault myself. My culpability, as I saw it, had to do with my failure to anticipate this calamity. For all the fretting I'd done about the ultimate No—the looming disaster that would offset all my halcyon fun house years—I'd never prepared myself for anything quite this bleak, this perfectly shitty. Why me? Why not me? It's human nature to search for meaning, and I was sorely tempted to see my illness as a metaphor (a tendency Susan Sontag brilliantly dissected in her book Illness as Metaphor). My Parkinson's represented the dropping of the other shoe. It was payback. It was the bill being brought to a sloppy table after an ill-deserved and underappreciated banquet. Such a turnabout I had no choice but to consider fair play. I should have seen it coming. In a way, this was my father talking, but there were times when the sentiment was mine.

  Angry or not, my only immediate recourse was to just get on with it until I could figure out some way to get out of it. I wouldn't begin regularly seeing a neurologist for several more years, but the original diagnosing physician had given me prescriptions for two different P.D. medications: Sinemet, the brand name version of levodopa or L-dopa, and another called Eldepryl (generically known as selegiline hydrochloride). Each acts differently within the brain to help mitigate symptoms, and they are just two among an ever-increasing number of commonly administered pharmaceutical therapies that include: Comtan (entacapone), Parlodel (bromocriptine), Requip (ropinirole), Permax (pergolide), and Mirapex (pramipexole dihydrochloride), Artane (trihexyphenidyl), Cogentin (benztropine), and Symmetrel (amantadine). Some of these work better than others, some not at all, depending on the patient and the severity or idiosyncrasies of what is, for all practical purposes, his or her own personal disease. Over the years, at one time or another and in various combinations, I'd take a turn on the dance floor with almost all of these drugs. None is, of course, a cure. There is, at this writing, no such thing.

  The doctor wanted me to start on Eldepryl, which can ease symptoms by delaying the breakdown of what dopamine the brain still produces. I took Eldepryl for a while, maybe a week, and found it had only a minor effect on the escalating tremor in my left hand. Again, it's important to emphasize that every patient experiences a unique manifestation of the constellation of symptoms that fit under the general umbrella of Parkinsonism. By the same token, every patient reacts differently to treatment, so it's crucial that he or she work closely with a neurologist to find the most effective way to manage the disease, not to mention strike a tolerable balance between the benefits and side effects of the various drugs. If I had followed this sensible advice, my experience with Eldepryl might have been more successful, but I was looking for more immediate results. Basically, I just wanted the symptoms to go away so I could forget about the whole mess for as long as possible, and, even more important, keep anyone else from noticing. So it was on to the next drug for me.

  The first drug approved specifically for Parkinson's (in 1970)—and still the most often prescribed P.D. medication—is Sinemet (levodopa). Sinemet is taken up by the brain and changed into dopamine, the neurotransmitter that a Parkinson's patient can no longer produce in sufficient quantities. In most patients, Sinemet significantly improves mobility and allows them to function almost normally. As Parkinson's disease progresses, however, the drug often proves less effective, making it necessary to take larger doses, thus heightening the risk of debilitating side effects like dyskinesias—involuntary movements and tics. For this reason some doctors try to postpone their patients’ use of Sinemet for as long as possible. It's also an accepted truth that if Sinemet succeeds in relieving your symptoms, that removes any doubt you have full-fledged Parkinson's disease. So I had decidedly mixed feelings the day I first took a half a Sinemet pill and, after approximately thirty minutes, found that the tremor had vanished, and didn't return for almost five hours. The bad news was obvious: here was yet another confirmation I had Parkinson's disease. The good news was, now I could hide it.

  Given what I do for a living, the very notion of hiding seems, on the face of it, ludicrous—the expression “hide in plain sight” pushed to the extreme. But, I never gave a second's thought to sharing my diagnosis with anyone outside of my inner circle of family, close friends, and trusted associates. I saw absolutely no compelling reason to do so. I didn't, and still don't, feel as though I was deceiving anyone by not immediately going public—this was my problem, I'd deal with it. With Sinemet, I now had the means to completely mask symptoms. If my employers didn't notice any difference in the way I performed my job—and, for the time being anyway, there really was none—then I had no compunctions that I was somehow peddling damaged goods.

  Since I didn't yet have a neurologist (I didn't even have a regular internist in New York, where I was living most of the time), I had my general practitioner from California prescribe Sinemet whenever I needed refills. I carried them around, loose and broken in the pockets of my shirts, coats, and trousers, popping them in an admittedly haphazard fashion until I achieved the desired result. I was a young man with a brand-new family, I had work to do, and I intended to pretend as if none of this was actually happening to me. Although, knowing what I knew, my life now could hardly go on business as usual.

  Following his surprise pronouncement that I had P.D., that very first diagnosing neuro offered what I assume he considered an upbeat prognosis. “With proper treatment,” he promised, “I see no reason why you can't have another ten good years of work ahead of you.”

  Ten years? I had just turned thirty.

  There was a rueful irony in the prospect of having to retire at forty. Jokingly, I had been announcing for years to disbelieving friends that forty was the age at which I intended to pack it all in, retreat with my family to our farm in Vermont, and pursue other interests. We'd all share a laugh. It was, of course, an idle threat, a fantasy of seizing control over the vagaries of show business: I can quit and live life on my own terms. But now, confronted with terms far harsher than those dictated by a fickle public or the box office bottom line, what had been a hypothetical and voluntary fallback position was suddenly my fate. Forget abdication, this was a coup, and in my panic I decided to break out the pillowcases, loot the palace, and escape with whatever I could carry.

  There is never a good time to find out that you're incurably ill, but from a career perspective, I felt especially vulnerable. After Family Ties, my future in the business would be built upon film work, and that foundation was already showing signs of cracking. While Doc Hollywood had been a modest hit for Warner Brothers, the Universal action comedy that preceded it, The Hard Way, had been a dismal failure. In ideal circumstances, I could address this stutter in my career in one of two ways: The first scenario would be to draw a measure of confidence from past successes, without trying to duplicate them, and proceed to reinvent myself—take interesting chances, choose lower-profile projects with greater artistic, if not commercial, ambitions. Or I could simply try to repeat myself, and pray lightning would strike twice. This meant chasing my tail, playing it safe by doing formulaic romantic comedies that had a shot at doing blockbuster business.

  Creatively, the first option was obviously preferable, but could I afford the time it would take? Ten years, the man had said—ten years to
do whatever work I was ever going to do—ten years to build on whatever financial security I had provided for my wife, son, and future children. How arsty-fartsy could I afford to be? So when Universal came to me post–Doc Hollywood (and, unbeknownst to them, post-diagnosis) with an offer of an eight-figure deal for three pictures over five years, my instinct was to leap. Tracy, however, was adamantly opposed.

  “You'll be trapped,” she warned.

  I argued that that wasn't true, since the contract allowed me to work on outside projects. She countered, rightly, that most of the writers, producers, and directors I'd want to collaborate with had exclusive deals at other studios. They couldn't come to Universal, and they wouldn't wait for me to be available for their films. And we both knew what Universal had in mind—keep remaking The Secret of My Success over and over until it paid off again.

  “You don't understand.” The words sounded strange to me, even before they left my lips. Had I ever said that to Tracy before? “I only have a limited window of opportunity here. This deal is giving me a chance to crawl through it and come out with something on the other side. I'm taking it.”

  THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

  Los Angeles/New York City—Spring/Summer 1992

  In the days leading up to preproduction on For Love or Money, the first film of my Universal contract (more or less a remake of Secret of My Success), I busied myself with other projects, some personal, some professional. Tracy, Sam, and I flew to California (we still, at that point, kept a home there) so I could direct an episode of Brooklyn Bridge for my old friend and Family Ties mentor, Gary Goldberg. It had been a year since I'd directed the episode of Tales from the Crypt, and I jumped at Gary's offer; directing had gone from an interesting sideline to a future career option. In addition to this work, and in an attempt to distract myself from my health problems and lose some weight, I threw myself into a maniacal fitness regimen.

  It wasn't enough that my drill-sergeant trainer pounded on our door every morning at four A.M. to lead me on a run around the UCLA campus and up and down the bleacher stairs of Drake Stadium, before dragging my ass back to my garage for a grueling half hour of weight repetitions—it was his diet that was killing me. Restricting myself to portions small enough to emaciate a hamster was one thing, but limiting my alcohol intake to one day of drinking a week—well, that was torture.

  Without really understanding what the hell I was doing, I realize now I'd entered, all too predictably, into the third stage of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's paradigm for coping with loss—after denial and anger comes bargaining. Though I couldn't yet comprehend the ultimate outcome of Parkinson's takeover of my body and, with it, my life, my instincts told me to start negotiating now, fiercely, for preemptive control in whatever areas that was still possible. If P.D. was going to rob me of the ability to work in front of the camera as an actor, I'd establish a role for myself behind it as a director. To offset the eventual financial losses, I'd accept the assured payday from Universal at the price of my creative freedom.

  As for the fitness training, I theorized that this self-imposed ordeal would strengthen my position on two fronts. I convinced myself that my conditioning, endurance, and increased physical toughness would somehow serve as a bulwark against neurological erosion. It would also, I calculated, fool other people. Even as I was growing sicker, those who didn't know my true condition might interpret my improved outward appearance as evidence that I was healthier than ever.

  For some, drinking alcohol only one day a week would be no hardship at all—they probably wouldn't think about it one way or another. I had trouble maintaining this discipline. Once, downing a few cold ones with Pete Benedek, my agent, while watching the Redskins humiliate the Bills in the Super Bowl, I expounded on my experience with the rigors of temperance and heard myself utter this priceless bit of drunkard's logic:

  “I'm glad I don't have a drinking problem,” I confided, “because I don't think I'd ever be able to quit.”

  Succeeding at my drinking career had taken some doing, even perseverance. I was never really cut out for drinking—I just wasn't that good at it. I was too small, got hammered too quickly. There was always a good reason to hoist a few, though. In the late seventies it was youthful rebellion—booze was an antidote to the self-consciousness that consumed me as an eccentric teenager in search of an identity. Then, in the eighties, as the range of my experience and the scale of my accomplishments exceeded my wildest imaginings, alcohol (all that free Moosehead) became an essential ingredient in what was ostensibly a decade-long victory party.

  I say “ostensibly” because the deeper purpose of all that celebrating may well have been to obliterate feelings of unworthiness and fear. But make no mistake, on the surface—and what were the eighties about if not surface?—the presiding mood was hedonistic abandon. This was a two-fisted, yee haw! scramble on top of a big oak bar with a magnum of Cristal champagne, leading a hundred or so of my closest pals in a chorus of “We Are the Champions”-type social drinking. And other than occasionally waking up with an army of fire ants colonizing the inside of my skull, there never seemed to be any major repercussions. Everybody knew who I was, how hard I worked—that's Mike, just blowing off steam. “I was drunk at the time” became my ever-ready, all-purpose excuse for any indiscretion.

  As the eighties gave way to the nineties, my marriage to Tracy—a glass-of-chardonnay-with-dinner type whom I don't think I've ever seen inebriated—led to a voluntary change in my drinking habits. I was ready to embrace a quieter life. My days as a backstage regular at rock concerts, a New York nightclub VIP lounge habitué, were over. I was happy to trade beer blasts with the boys for time alone with my bride, and soon after, our baby. Though my new lifestyle was decidedly less social, drinking still had its place. Rarely, if ever, intoxicated around Tracy, I'd just have a glass of wine or two at dinner—as if I actually subscribed to her belief that there was a purpose to drinking other than getting blotto. I'd still tie one on occasionally, usually when I was traveling, and might even go on prolonged benders if I was out of town working on a movie. Overall, though, the party was over, and I was okay with that, as long as they didn't shut down the bar completely.

  With my diagnosis in 1991 came another shift in my relationship with alcohol. The quantity of my drinking was still down from eighties levels, but the quality of that drinking had changed ominously. I always knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that my drinking was about filling a void, masking a need to be something more than I was. Now, without the pretense of celebration and camaraderie to veil the abuse, I craved alcohol as a direct response to the need I felt to escape my situation. Joyless and secretive, I drank to disassociate; drinking now was about isolation and self-medication.

  . . .

  We returned to New York from Los Angeles early in the spring of 1992. Tracy was in rehearsal for a new Neil Simon play, Jake's Women. There'd be an out-of-town run in North Carolina for a few weeks before it opened on Broadway, roughly around the same time I was to begin shooting For Love or Money in the beginning of May.

  As soon as we began shooting, I was miserable. In the midst of all this inner turmoil and psychological negotiation, it probably was no coincidence that I agreed to play this particular character—a wily and hyperactive concierge at one of New York's luxury hotels. A concierge, or at least the one represented in our movie, is a wheeler-dealer, a calculating operator who will do whatever is necessary to please his hotel guest clients and thereby extract as big a tip as possible. He aspires to own his own hotel someday, but becomes so frantic and so fearful of failure, that he can think of nothing better to do with his life except to keep moving—just keep on dancing as fast as he can and hope folks keep throwing nickels. For me, this was like method acting in reverse.

  As an actor, I did feel that I was repeating myself, but I didn't dare complain to Tracy. I was afraid that she would come back at me with some variation on “I told you so.” And whether or not that was fair of me, it deepened my sense of
isolation. At the end of the workday I'd drink a couple of beers in my trailer, having a couple more as my teamster driver shuttled me home. At dinner, I'd ask Tracy if she wanted wine. If she said yes, I'd select a bottle, pour us each a glass, then take the bottle back into the kitchen under the pretense of returning it to the refrigerator. In my other hand, I'd be carrying my own wine glass. Once in the kitchen, I'd quickly polish off the bottle, throw it in the recycle bin by the service elevator and extract an identical bottle from the wine rack. I'd open it and swill enough to lower the level of liquid in the second bottle so it matched that of the first when I'd left the living room. Returning from the kitchen, as if I'd spent the last five minutes checking on the pot roast, I'd ask Tracy if she wanted me to freshen up her glass, do so, and then refill my own once more.

  For all my sneakiness, I knew I couldn't be hiding my drinking all that well. By the end of dinner, my voice would be inappropriately loud and my words slurred. There were nights that I'd get out of bed after Tracy had fallen asleep and continue drinking. On those occasions when Tracy confronted me, I'd become angry and defensive. The distance that my behavior was opening up between me and my young family frightened me—but this was dwarfed by the greater fear of the other shoe dropping; the bill that had finally come due but which I had no way to settle.