'Grey's Anatomy' actor Eric Dane's posthumous memoir reveals that he was initially misdiagnosed with a treatable illness.
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Add BollywoodShaadis on GoogleBeloved veteran actor Eric Dane passed away on February 19, 2026, leaving his fans completely heartbroken. Eric was 53 years old at the time of his death. He had courageously battled amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for ten months before his death, a diagnosis he first went public with in April 2025. Now, Eric’s posthumous memoir reveals that he was initially misdiagnosed with a treatable illness.
Eric Dane’s memoir titled My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments was released on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. In the memoir, the actor claimed that he was initially misdiagnosed before he found out that he had ALS. According to Eric, he started seeking answers after gradually losing use of his right hand. Eric recalled in the book:
“First, I saw a hand specialist, who passed me off to another hand specialist, who sent me to a neurologist.”
The neurologist that he visited speculated that Eric had contracted some form of neuropathy. But he felt that Eric's struggles were “above his pay grade” and sent him to another doctor. Eric wrote:
“I shuttled from doctor to doctor and underwent a battery of tests, including one called an EMG, an electromyography test.”
Eric noted that he eventually received “a diagnostic consensus” of multifocal motor neuropathy. Describing the condition, he said that it was a rare autoimmune disorder causing extreme muscle weakness. He revealed that it still has a 90 percent effective treatment. The actor underwent the treatment but did not respond to it, leaving his medical team “scared.” This is when his primary doctor gave him the “grim” news, saying, “We've been discussing ALS. But we have to wait and see.”
Hearing this left Eric Dane “frustrated and fed up.” Since then, he underwent a lumbar puncture, spinal fluid extraction, and brain scans. The Euphoria star was officially diagnosed with ALS nine months later in 2024. Eric called the disease a “death sentence” and the makings of a “horror movie” in his memoir.
Eric Dane went public with his ALS diagnosis a year after he found out about it, in April 2025. He passed away at 53 in February 2026 and is survived by his two teen daughters, Billie and Georgia, whom he welcomed with his estranged wife, Rebecca Gayheart. Eric and Rebecca split in 2018 after over a decade of marriage.
Eric recounted the conversation he had with her after his ALS diagnosis in his memoir. He claimed that after telling Rebecca that the diagnosis was indeed “what they'd feared,” he felt “a violent impact, like getting the wind knocked out” of him. Following this, Eric had body-shuddering sobs while his estranged wife wailed over the phone.
In his final interview on Netflix’s Famous Last Words, Eric Dane admitted he still deeply loved Rebecca. He said their bond remained strong throughout, calling her the mother of his children and the greatest love of his life, even if they no longer lived together. He said:
"We still love each other deeply; I just think we don't want to live with each other. But there's a lot of love there. I will have never, by the time anybody sees this, fallen in love with another woman as deeply as I fell in love with Rebecca. She's the mother of my children, and the whole way that thing came about was so organic and fortuitous. I met Rebecca, and I turned to her friend, and I said, 'I'm going to marry that girl.'"
Last month, in October 2026, Rebecca confessed while speaking to PEOPLE that when Eric told her about his diagnosis, it felt like a punch to the gut. She also said that if she got the chance to speak to Eric now, she would tell him that she is going to look after their daughters and protect them at all costs.
What are your thoughts on Eric Dane being misdiagnosed with a treatable illness before his ALS diagnosis?
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