Eric Dane's memoir has been released, nine months after the actor passed away on February 19, 2026, and reveals for the first time the misdiagnosis he received fro doctors before he was given what he called a "death sentence."
Eric died at the age of 53 following a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In the memoir, which Eric in the months before his death, he shared details on his relationship with wife Rebecca Gayheart and his children, as well as his career, but he also discussed the first signs of his illness and how he was passed between various doctors.
© Getty Images"I shuttled from doctor to doctor and underwent a battery of tests, including one called an EMG, an electromyography test," he wrote, sharing that he first began visiting doctors when he lost use of his right hand.
Several doctors eventually gave him what he called a "diagnostic consensus" of multifocal motor neuropathy (MNN), a rare, slow-progressing autoimmune disease that targets and damages your body's motor nerve.
"Finally, thankfully, an answer. And, even better, a treatment—a transfusion that is 90 percent effective," Eric continued. "'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."
© Pief Weyman/NBC via Getty ImagesEric went on to write that, collectively, his doctors "got scared" which also worried the actor himself.
The Euphoria and Grey's Anatomy actor then underwent a lumbar puncture, spinal fluid extraction and brain scans, and in 2024, he was given the diagnosis of ALS.
"The letters seem to float out of [the doctor's] mouth and hover ominously above me," recalled Eric.
"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."
© Disney General Entertainment ConMy Book Of Days: A Memoir of Moments was released on Tuesday November 3, 2026.
Eric and Rebecca got married in Las Vegas on October 29, 2004, and welcomed two daughters together, Billie (born 2010) and Georgia (born 2011).
Rebecca filed for divorce in 2018, though the pair never finalized it and remained close co-parents. In March 2025, she filed to withdraw the divorce petition, and she became his caretaker after the ALS diagnosis.
© AFP via Getty ImagesIn November 2025, months before his passing, she shared that she is "trying to show [our kids] that we show up for people no matter what".
"He is our family. He is your father. We show up, and we try to do it with some dignity and some grace and just get through it. We will get through it the best we can," she said on the Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen podcast.
The actor also left behind a heartbreaking final interview Famous Last Word with his "last words" for Rebecca and daughters Billie, 15 and Georgia, 14, which was filmed under the condition that it would only be released after his passing.
It was released on February 20.
In the moving interview he was asked to "describe the essence" of his long-time relationship with his wife, and 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, have fallen in love with another woman, as deeply as I feel in love with Rebecca. She's the mother of my children and the whole way that thing came about it was so organic and fortuitous."
