• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

For Eric Dane, the diagnosis was a bolt from the blue: ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Dane, 52, was diagnosed with the illness in April. He held his first interview since hearing the news earlier this week with Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America.”

His next series, the action-thriller “Countdown,” premieres next Wednesday (June 25) on Amazon Prime. 

On “GMA,” he reported that his ALS has progressed since his diagnosis. “I have one functioning arm, my dominant side. My left side is functioning, my right side has completely stopped working,” Dane said.

His left side “is going,” said the actor, who is best known for his starring roles on “Grey’s Anatomy” (2006-12) and “The Last Ship” (2014-18). “I feel like maybe a couple, few more months, and I won’t have my left hand either. It’s sobering.”

He reported that he can still walk, but he admits he’s “worried” about his legs. “I wake up every day and I’m immediately reminded that this is happening,” Dane told Sawyer. “It’s not a dream.”

ALS -- full name: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis -- is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by muscle weakness and respiratory failure, says the National Institutes of Health. It is a terminal illness for which there is no known cure.

ALS is widely known as Lou Gehrig’s disease because of the Yankee star’s stunning diagnosis of the disease in 1939 at age 36. 

His acceptance of the news and his dramatic farewell from baseball at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939 made Gehrig -- who was already one of the greatest to ever play the game -- an American legend.

Days after his diagnosis in April, Dane was back at work filming Season Three of his other series “Euphoria,” the HBO drama that premiered in 2019, according to People magazine.

“I’m going to ride this ’til the wheels fall off,” the actor said in an interview with E! News. “It keeps me sharp. It keeps me moving forward, which is super important right now.”

“I feel great when I’m at work. Of course, there have been some setbacks,” he said. “But I feel pretty good. My spirit is always pretty buoyant, so at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”

In “Countdown,” Dane plays the head of a multiagency law enforcement task force assigned to thwart a catastrophic attack on Los Angeles.