Eric Dane has 24/7 nursing care amid ALS battle, ex Rebecca Gayheart reveals
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Actor Eric Dane is receiving around-the-clock nursing care after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). According to his estranged wife, Rebecca Gayheart, she has been deeply involved in securing full-time home care and navigating insurance challenges, ensuring that Dane has full-time support.
Rebecca Gayheart on her struggle to secure full-time medical care for Eric Dane
In a deeply personal essay for The Cut, Gayheart wrote about her caregiving experience, in which she revealed that “Eric has 24/7 nurses now.”
Taking charge of Dane's medical care, Gayheart shared, “just figuring out the health-care system is its own thing — the health-insurance company will deny you what you’re asking for and you have to appeal and then you have to apply again.”
She wrote that when she was trying to get home nursing care, “the woman from his insurance said to me, ‘You can keep applying, and I’ll keep denying,’ I was like, ‘Oh? F that.’ I made it my mission. I was ‘locked in,’ as the kids would say. I crashed out, and then I locked it in.”
Gayheart refused to give up, explaining that “we got it approved after two appeals.”
She highlighted that his care is divided into 21 shifts.
Rebecca Gayheart covers shifts when necessary
“There are times that shifts aren’t covered, so I cover them. There was a 12-hour shift recently that I could not cover. I could only do four hours because of all the stuff that the kids are doing,” she explained.
“I had to call on two of Eric’s friends, one of them who had never really taken care of him in that way. I thought, ‘I can’t believe I had to ask someone to do this.’ And of course, when I asked for help, they said, ‘Yeah, anything, what do you need? What’s going on?’ And they both showed up and did a wonderful job,” Gayheart wrote.
The actress explained, "There are a lot of people who used to be more present in my life who I think about and wonder, 'Where’d they go?' She shared that she's "talked to my therapist about it a lot," and realized that "most people are not great in this situation because it’s so heavy."
"It’s not easy for people," Gayheart explained. "So I don’t hold any grudges toward [anyone] who hasn’t shown up."
Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane's relationship
Gayheart and Dane tied the knot in 2004, and they share daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13.
"It's probably one of the least interesting stories in the world. It went basically like this: 'You wanna go out?' 'Yeah, sure.' Ten months later, we were married," she said about how they met to Flaunt magazine.
In February 2018, Gayheart filed for divorce from Dane after 14 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. In March this year, Gayheart filed to withdraw her divorce petition.
