RIP Eric Dane

My neighbor who was diagnosed with ALS about 6 months ago was on a trip with his wife this week stopped breathing and died while she administered CPR.

He was still able to get around pretty well and was well enough to take the trip. Just an awful situation.
 
My best friend was diagnosed with ALS around 2018/2019 and passed away in May of 2024. It is one of the worst diseases period. Was heartbreaking seeing his progression over the years.
 
DiehardHeelFan said:
My best friend was diagnosed with ALS around 2018/2019 and passed away in May of 2024. It is one of the worst diseases period. Was heartbreaking seeing his progression over the years.
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That fucking sucks.

ALS or dementia/Alzheimer’s. Both suck.

My Mom has Alzheimer’s. In the last 2-3 months we’ve raced in reverse in terms of her memory. We’ve gone from her remembering the 2020’s back in November to her remembering VJ Day in 1945 today. She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know Dad, her husband.

I’ve been calling the handful of friends still alive and alert and telling them that if they want to interact with Mom one more time, come now.

ALS might be worse; ALS victims have functional brains compared to dementia/Alzheimer’s victims. But, daily with my Mom, something is there….her brain pathways are blocked and her brain doesn’t function properly. Something tells me that Alzheimer’s is a more hellish end-of-life than we understand - and, I understand it’s hellish.
 
Zoo_View said:
That fucking sucks.

ALS or dementia/Alzheimer’s. Both suck.

My Mom has Alzheimer’s. In the last 2-3 months we’ve raced in reverse in terms of her memory. We’ve gone from her remembering the 2020’s back in November to her remembering VJ Day in 1945 today. She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know Dad, her husband.

I’ve been calling the handful of friends still alive and alert and telling them that if they want to interact with Mom one more time, come now.

ALS might be worse; ALS victims have functional brains compared to dementia/Alzheimer’s victims. But, daily with my Mom, something is there….her brain pathways are blocked and her brain doesn’t function properly. Something tells me that Alzheimer’s is a more hellish end-of-life than we understand - and, I understand it’s hellish.
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Yes, he was fully aware the entire time so was heartbreaking knowing what all he wanted to do but couldn’t. He went from just having to walk slowly and his speech being limited to needing a wheelchair and not really being able to speak at all. He could make sounds but the muscles too weak to form things into words. Had to be fed. Food had to be chopped up because the mouth muscles were weak. Then eventually confined to a bed the vast majority of the time. Eventually he was able to communicate thanks to technology. He had a computer screen near him that he could type words using his eyes. Look at a letter or a common word long enough and it would type it. Then he would cue it to send and a speaker would pronounce what he had typed.

He was the one who went to pretty much all UNC sporting events with me. Remember our last one. Heels’ football game. He told me on the way home that was his last game. He just couldn’t get around a well enough anymore.

It also takes a toll on the family. His needs were immense even with home health coming in to help. Feeding him, moving his hands to a place where he was comfortable, adjusting his bed set up often.

I would visit around once a week as much as I could. Usually went by on a Sunday and would stay awhile and sit and watch sports with him and just talk. Anytime I could make him laugh I called it a win. It was always nice to see him smile knowing what he went through daily.

It’s a devastating disease. Believe there are 2 types. One that predominantly affects the upper half of the body and one that predominantly affects the lower half. Heart goes out to anyone who gets this as well as their family.
 
I didn’t see him in his more famous roles but did enjoy watching the first two seasons of The Last Ship with my son. It wasn’t a great show but was an entertaining diversion, especially because we got to watch it with our then middle school aged son (at an age where he was generally embarrassed to be in the same room with us). So that’s a great experience/memory that Dane helped create for us.

Once the show moved past the initial pandemic and into the post-apocalyptic human madness, my son lost interest and we quit watching. Little did we know there was an actual pandemic waiting for us right around the corner!
 
nycfan said:
I didn’t see him in his more famous roles but did enjoy watching the first two seasons of The Last Ship with my son. It wasn’t a great show but was an entertaining diversion, especially because we got to watch it with our then middle school aged son (at an age where he was generally embarrassed to be in the same room with us). So that’s a great experience/memory that Dane helped create for us.

Once the show moved past the initial pandemic and into the post-apocalyptic human madness, my son lost interest and we quit watching. Little did we know there was an actual pandemic waiting for us right around the corner!
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I had forgotten about that show. I watched it, too, but can't remember much about it now.
 
C-Money said:
I had forgotten about that show. I watched it, too, but can't remember much about it now.
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Hey, when your middle school son wants to do something with you, you take the chance. It was TNT Middlebrow stuff — the concept had more promise than the show delivered but still fun.
 
Eric Dane, Jesse Jackson, Robert Duvall and James Van Der Beek all died within 8 days of each other. Crazy how the celebrity deaths happening in threes works.
 
nycfan said:
Hey, when your middle school son wants to do something with you, you take the chance. It was TNT Middlebrow stuff — the concept had more promise than the show delivered but still fun.
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As someone who was formerly a middle school boy, thank you for watching shows with your son. Some of my favorite experiences from that era were watching Party of Five, My So Called Life, Byrds of Paradise, and - later - Gilmore Girls with my mom. I was passionate, but not a happy teen, and those shows gave me something to look forward to when I wanted to give up. We’d talk about weekly thematic strands, and why each character behaved the way they did. Just the shared experience of having someone there with me, present in the moment, was profoundly important.
 
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