Comedian Richard Lewis has been battling Parkinson's Disease for two years, he revealed Sunday in a video posted to Twitter. Lewis, a regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm who just wrapped on the show's 12th season, said he had stopped touring just before his health struggles began, and is permanently done with that: "I'm finished with stand-up, I'm just focused on writing and acting," the 75-year-old says in the video, per the BBC. "I have Parkinson's Disease but I'm under a doctor's care, and everything is cool and I love my wife, I love my little puppy dog and I love all of my friends and my fans." Lewis had appeared in just one episode of Curb's 11th season.
Lewis says that his health struggles started a year and a half before his Parkinson's diagnosis. He had four back-to-back surgeries involving his shoulder, back, and hip, Variety reports, after which he noticed he had "started walking a little stiffly" and was "shuffling" his feet. After a brain scan, a neurologist ultimately diagnosed Parkinson's, a progressive disorder involving nerve cells in the area of the brain that controls movement. Tremors, impaired balance, changes to speech, and slow movement are all symptoms. Lewis says he was fortunate, among other things, to be diagnosed later in life (most people are diagnosed after age 60, but Michael J. Fox was diagnosed at 29). "They say you progress very slowly if at all and I’m on the right meds so I’m cool," he says. (More Parkinson's disease stories.)
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