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The first time Eric Dane noticed his ALS symptoms was when he suddenly began struggling to use chopsticks at dinner with his family.
“I’m eating sushi with my kids and suddenly I can’t work the chopsticks with my right hand. My hand tingles, and then my fingers feel numb,” Dane wrote in an excerpt of his posthumous memoir, “My Book of Days,” obtained by People, recalling the first sign of the disease he noticed on Jan. 7, 2024.
The late “Grey’s Anatomy” actor — who publicly announced his diagnosis a year later in 2025 — said that he initially thought it was “some kind of weird nerve thing” and tried to “shake it off,” figuring he was “probably texting too much.”
“Three weeks later, it happens again, only worse. I can’t grip the chopsticks at all,” he wrote.
According to his memoir, the second episode marked the beginning of a nine-month period of “searching for answers” before Dane was diagnosed with ALS by Dr. Mark Terrelonge, associate program director of neurology residency at the University of California, San Francisco.
“I have been diagnosed with ALS. I am grateful to have my loving family by my side as we navigate this next chapter. … I kindly ask that you give my family and I privacy during this time,” Dane announced in 2025.
At the time, he also revealed that he would reprise his role as Cal Jacobs in the third season of “Euphoria.”
He made his first posthumous appearance in the HBO series’ second episode, which aired April 19, two months after his death on Feb. 19 at age 53 following his battle with ALS.
During a June 16, 2025, appearance on “Good Morning America,” Dane discussed the first symptom he experienced before his diagnosis, saying, “I started experiencing some weakness in my right hand, and I didn’t really think anything of it at the time.
He explained that he thought he “had been texting too much” or that his “hand was fatigued,” but “a few weeks later” he noticed it “had gotten a little worse.”
At the time, Dane also revealed that his dominant right arm had “completely stopped working.”
When Diane Sawyer, now 80, asked whether his left arm was “fine,” he replied, “No, it’s going,” adding that he felt he had only “a few more months” of use left.
Elsewhere in his memoir, set to be released Nov. 3, Dane described how his youngest daughter, Georgia, and a friend had to save him from drowning while on vacation.
He said that he called his estranged wife, Rebecca Gayheart, and told her, “I can’t swim, Rebecca. … I can’t swim.”
“She explodes into tears, and I weep with her. We cry together. Finally, the tears slow, become reduced to gasps, and when we’re both cried out, Rebecca says, ‘I was afraid of this day. I knew it would come. I’ve been dreading it,” Dane wrote.
He also detailed the devastating call he made to Gayheart to reveal his diagnosis.