New Zealander Neil Cunningham says motor neurone disease has depleted his strength to the point where it is difficult for him to wash his hair or pull up a pair of jeans.
He is popular on the European rally scene through his work with the Top Gear Live stunt team and as one of the men behind the wheel in the dramatic opening sequence of the last Bond film, Quantum of Solace.
On the eve of his 50th birthday this week, Mr Cunningham told APNZ he felt like a 95-year-old in a 50-year-old's body - but said he is determined to battle and beat the currently incurable disease.
He is confident a team of London doctors, led by a New Zealand professor, is close to finding a cure or at least a treatment by the end of next year.
"When I wake up every day I try and be positive. I use my positive thinking to try and keep me fit," Mr Cunningham said.
"Once you end up in a wheelchair it gets easy because people push you everywhere, you don't have to do anything. But you've got to push yourself. I think that's the Kiwi and the Aussie way: never give up.
"I'm very lucky because I've got the slow progressing disease. Two years ago, when I first got really ill, I didn't think I'd get to 50."
Mr Cunningham first started driving go-karts as a 10-year-old in Mt Wellington, Auckland.
"I was underage and underweight so I was very quick," he says.
His family later moved to the Gold Coast.
"That's where my career started blossoming. As I got older I used to get chased by the Queensland Police."
One night he was caught by an officer who introduced him to a racing driver. Police officers later watched his first qualifying race as an 18-year-old.
Three-time world F1 champion Sir Jack Brabham took Mr Cunningham to the UK where he raced the European circuit with the Australian team.
A fellow driver put Mr Cunningham onto Top Gear, but he denies rumours he was ever the on-screen Stig - the white-suited test driver whose identity was a closely guarded secret.
"I always had the Stig in my mirror," he said.
Mr Cunningham was a stunt driver for Top Gear Live before his big-screen breakthrough when he was recruited for the Bond film in 2008.
Few people knew about Mr Cunningham's diagnosis of motor neurone disease late in 2010 and he continued to race until last September.
Mr Cunningham says his London doctor, New Zealand-born Professor Christopher Shaw, keeps his hopes high of a cure to the disease.
He has become a campaigner for awareness about the disease and helped raise about 55,000 (NZ$110,350) for Professor Shaw's research.
Close friend James Beckett said there a large network of loyal friends banded around Mr Cunningham and his family.
"There really isn't a nicer person in British motorsport and people tell him that all the time," Mr Beckett said.
Mr Cunningham lives with his family in Swansea, Wales.
At his coastal home, near a holiday retreat owned by Michael Douglas and his Welsh wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mr Cunningham has planted native New Zealand ferns to cure his homesickness.
He plans to return to his Kiwi roots and live at Mt Maunganui. Mr Cunningham lives with his Welsh wife, Rachael, and his daughter India-Bo, 4, and son Ted, 2. He also has another daughter, Jaime, 23.
"I will get better," Mr Cunningham said. "I want to go back to racing cars. I'm going to return to New Zealand and go sit on the beach with my kids. That's the plan."
Mr Cunningham is not the only New Zealand stuntman to work on a James Bond film. Ben Cooke, whose family is based in Auckland, has been a stunt double for numerous celebrities, including Daniel Craig as Bond.
