To Eric Dane there’s no option when it comes to sharing his journey with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
The actor is opening up once more about his diagnosis after appearing in an episode of NBC’s “Brilliant Minds” as Matthew, a firefighter and 9/11 hero, who couldn’t bear to break the devastating news to his wife that he’s been diagnosed with ALS.
His role on the show was the “Euphoria” star’s first performance since his diagnosis announcement back in April.
Participating a virtual panel featuring I AM ALS and Synapticure co-founders Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya, joined by “Brilliant Minds” showrunner, creator and executive producer Michael Grassi and show writer and consulting producer Dr. Daniela Lamas, M.D., Dane talked about his experience portraying an ALS patient on the show amid his reality battling the same neurodegenerative disease.
He also confessed about the difficulty in separating the character from himself during his “Brilliant Minds” appearance. So much so, that he was indebted for the experience.
“I have no reason to be in a good spirit at any time, on any given day, I don’t think anybody would blame me if I went upstairs in my bedroom, crawled under the sheets, and spent the next two weeks crying,” he said, per People. “And I was a little bit pleasantly surprised when I realized that I wasn’t built like that, because I thought for sure that was gonna be me.”
In fact, to the “Grey’s Anatomy” star’s surprise, how he felt after was quite the opposite of crying for two weeks.
For the beloved actor, it was actually “very encouraging” to know that he had a “buoyant spirit in the face of something so horrible.”
But, regardless of the praise Dane seemed to have given himself for the deeply personal acting role he undertook, he’s not sure if this is a road he’d embark on again for anyone else. The actor also acknowledges that “it’s imperative that I share my journey with as many people as I can because I don’t feel like my life is about me anymore.”
It’s something he’s often back and forth with himself about due to being a “pretty selfish person,” but is unable to move on with life being all about himself.
He simply called it, “a propulsive sort of component to my existence.”
“You know, obviously, I have a family at home, and they’re the priority. But this is such a big deal to me,” Dane noted.
“I make sure that people are aware of what ALS is and what it’s about, and more importantly, what we can do to combat it and improve the landscape, because it’s so rocky and littered with hurdles and bureaucracy and all this other nonsense that we’re trying to sift through so we can get to a place where we go, start working on solution,” he shared.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.pennlive.com ’
