Months before receiving what he called his ALS “death sentence,” Eric Dane had been diagnosed with a different, treatable condition.
Dane died at 53 earlier this year, but a memoir he wrote while coping with his illness is now being published. The book explores his struggles with addiction, his relationship with wife Rebecca Gayheart and the early warning signs of his disease.
My Book Of Days: A Memoir of Moments was released on Tuesday, offering a vivid account of the events that led to his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis.
ALS is a rare, incurable degenerative disease that progressively damages the nervous system, eventually causing increasing muscle paralysis.
Dane wrote that he first sought medical help after “gradually losing any 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.
Eric Dane, pictured in Los Angeles in June 2025, had been misdiagnosed with a treatable condition months before what he described as receiving his ALS “death sentence.”
My Book Of Days: A Memoir of Moments was released on Tuesday and details the process that eventually led to Eric Dane’s amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis.
The neurologist believed the actor had “contracted some form of neuropathy,” but felt the case was “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.
After consultations with several physicians, he said he was given “a diagnostic consensus” of multifocal motor neuropathy.
“Finally, thankfully, an answer. And, even better, a treatment—a transfusion that is 90 percent effective,” Dane recalled.
“A glum doctor injected immunoglobulin or gamma globulin or some kind of globulin into my body. Lit me up.”
“Except—it didn’t work. I didn’t respond to the treatment. I still couldn’t move my right hand.”
When Dane failed to respond to the treatment, his physicians “got scared,” a reaction that intensified the actor’s own fears.
Dane then returned to his primary care physician in Los Angeles, who told him in a “grim monotone”: “I’m going to level with you. We’ve been discussing ALS. But we have to wait and see.”
Several doctors ultimately agreed that Dane had multifocal motor neuropathy, but the treatment—described as being “90 percent effective”—failed to help. Dane is pictured in New York in May 2024.
Dane became famous as Dr. Mark Sloan, nicknamed “McSteamy,” on Grey’s Anatomy.
He underwent months of additional testing, including a lumbar puncture, spinal-fluid extraction and brain scans, but doctors still could not provide a definitive diagnosis.
Frustrated, Dane drew on his connections to contact Dr. Terrelonge, head of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, and have the tests repeated.
He said that the doctor approached him shyly but with absolute certainty as he told him what he was ‘scared to death’ of what to hear that it was ALS.
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Dane recalled: ‘The letters seem to float out of his mouth and hover ominously above me. I know what the letters mean. I’ve prepared myself for at least that much.
‘I know those letters mean I have a progressive, degenerative disease that will gradually destroy the nerve cells and connections I need to walk, use my hands, speak, and breathe. I know I’m facing a death sentence. My life has become a horror movie.’
Despite the heartbreaking diagnosis, Dane went on to console his brother Sean and cousin mark who had accompanied him to the Bay Area.
Dane was married to actress Rebecca Gayheart as they share daughters Billie, 16, and Georgia, 14.
Dane, who shot to fame on Grey’s Anatomy as Dr Mark Sloan aka ‘McSteamy,’ died February 19 aged 53 of ALS about a year after he announced that he had been diagnosed with the illness.
Dane was married to actress Rebecca Gayheart (Above in Los Angeles in June 2017) as they split in 2017 but remained friendly co-parents and never officially finalized the divorce
The two stars shared daughters Billie, 16, and Georgia, 14 (Above with Dane in Hollywood in May 2024)
Although Dane split from Gayheart in 2017, they remained friendly co-parents and never finalized the divorce, which they called off just before he revealed he had ALS, colloquially known in America as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Gayheart, 55, remained a stalwart source of support for him amid his final decline, even as both of them continued to date other people.
Dane and Gayheart tied the knot in 2004, two years before he landed his fan favorite role as the womanizing ‘McSteamy’ on Grey’s Anatomy.
They stayed together through the scandal that erupted five years into their marriage when a home video leaked of them frolicking naked with an ex-beauty queen.
Gayheart stood by Dane through various personal problems, including his rehab stay in 2011 to wean himself off the pain medication he had begun taking for an injury.
Six years later in 2017, Dane entered treatment for depression, resulting in a filming pause on his action drama series The Last Ship.
The next year, Gayheart filed for divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences, and the pair agreed on joint custody of their daughters with Dane paying alimony.
Above, Dane and Gayheart with their two children in Los Angeles in June 2017
Gayheart, who acted infrequently after having children, remarked a few months after her divorce filing that she wanted to start working again.
‘I think that as a female you need to be able to always take care of yourself and never depend on a man,’ she told Us Weekly. ‘I’m going back to work and I think it’s partly because I want my daughters to see me work.’
She explained that she and Eric were ‘doing our best’ to co-parent their children, acknowledging: ‘It isn’t easy. But we are trying and we are committed.’
The couple never finalized the divorce, which they threw out altogether in the weeks before Dane announced he was suffering from ALS.
Dane’s memoir My Book Of Days: A Memoir of Moments is out now.