Late Euphoria star Eric Dane got candid about his health struggles in his posthumous memoir.
Videos by Wide Open Country
In the new book titled My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments, Dane revealed that doctors had given him a misdiagnosis for a treatable illness. The diagnosis came months before he was informed that he had ALS. According to a Tuesday (November 3) report from Page Six.
Dane Recalls Receiving Misdiagnosis in New Memoir
In the memoir, Dane noted that he immediately knew that something was off when he began to "gradually" lose the use of his right hand.
"First, I saw a hand specialist. Who passed me off to another hand specialist, who sent me to a neurologist," Dane recalled in his memoir.
The neurologist that Eric visited with initially believed that he "had contracted some form of neuropathy."
The actor noted that the neurologist thought that his symptoms were "above his pay grade" and referred him to another doctor.
"I shuttled from doctor to doctor and underwent a battery of tests, including one called an EMG, an electromyography test," Dane wrote.
The Marley & Me actor also recalled "a diagnostic consensus" of multifocal motor neuropathy. A condition that Eric described as "a rare autoimmune disorder causing extreme muscle weakness." The actor also said that the condition has a "90 percent effective" treatment.
However, when the treatment proved to be ineffective, Dane says that his medical team began to express concern. It was at that point when Eric's primary care physician began to discuss the possibility that he could have ALS.
Actor Was Diagnosed With ALS in 2025
After undergoing a series of procedures, including a lumbar puncture, spinal fluid extraction, and brain scans, Dane was diagnosed with ALS in April 2025. In February 2026, less than a year after his diagnosis, Dane passed away from complications of the condition.
In an interview with The Today Show on Tuesday (November 3), Dane's wife, Erica Gayheart, said that the actor was aware that his condition was worsening in his final days.
"He was fully aware it was shifting, and he was still communicating with us. Not well verbally, but I could understand him most of the time," Gayheart said (via PEOPLE).
She also noted that Eric knew when he was dying and "was figuring it out as we went."
Dane was 53 years old.
