Eric Dane Makes First Red Carpet Appearance Since Announcing ALS Diagnosis After Vowing to Continue Working
“I feel fortunate that I am able to continue working,” Dane, who stars as the Jacobs family patriarch on Euphoria, added.
And in a June interview, the actor insisted he doesn’t plan on slowing down his work amid his diagnosis.
“I’m going to ride this ’til the wheels fall off,” he told E! News. “[Work] keeps me sharp. It keeps me moving forward, which is super important right now.”
“I feel great when I’m at work,” he continued. “Of course, there have been some sort of setbacks, but I feel pretty good. My spirit is always pretty buoyant, so at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”
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Dane also opened up about the challenges he’s faced during an interview with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America earlier this week.
“I have one functioning arm. My dominant side. My left side is functioning, my right side has completely stopped working,” he said before adding that his left is slowly deteriorating. “It’s going. I feel like maybe a couple few more months, and I won’t have my left hand either. It’s sobering.”
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ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a rare degenerative disease that causes progressive paralysis of the muscles. Patients first experience twitching or weakness in a limb, often followed by slurred speech. According to the Mayo Clinic, because the disease affects the nerve cells in the brain and spine that control muscle movement, patients slowly lose their ability to speak, eat, walk, and breathe independently.
There’s no cure for ALS, and people usually live three to five years after diagnosis, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. However, some patients can live decades.
