Fox News Meteorologist Janice Dean Is a ‘Better Person’ After Living with Multiple Sclerosis for 20 Years (Exclusive)
“I’ve realized what’s important in life,” she tells PEOPLE
By the fall of 2005, Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean felt like the world was finally turning her way. “I was 35, I had just gotten my job at Fox, I had a great boyfriend . . . it all felt like a dream come true,” says Dean. So when she started feeling unusually fatigued, she didn’t think a lot about it.
“I just kind of chalked it up to working too much, not taking care of myself, that kind of thing,” she says.
Then in October, during a trip home to Ottawa to introduce her boyfriend to her family, her nagging fatigue suddenly became overwhelming. “I woke up one morning and literally couldn’t get out of bed,” says Dean. “It was like nothing I had ever felt before. Like I had this weighted blanket on me. I couldn’t feel the bottoms of my feet, and I also had this weird numbness in my thighs. I was like, ‘What is wrong with me?’ ”
After a series of tests including an MRI and a spinal tap, doctors delivered a staggering diagnosis: Dean had multiple sclerosis, a chronic auto-immune disease that is believed to affect as many as 1 million Americans.
“It was the shock of a lifetime,” says Dean. “I remember just feeling all of it was going to end: that my boyfriend was going to leave me, that I would be in a wheelchair, and I wouldn’t be able to do my job at Fox. All of my dreams kind of came crashing down.”
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Now, almost two decades later, Dean can look back with gratitude that none of those things came to pass. She and that boyfriend, New York City firefighter Sean Newman, have been married since 2007, she’s celebrating her 20th year at Fox (she’s now also a contributor to Fox Weather), and new treatment options have kept her MS flare-ups mostly under control.
“I’m still standing,” she says. “Better than standing. And I sometimes think I’m a better person because of the diagnosis, if that makes any sense. This made me realize what was important in life, like your health and your family and your support system.”
Dean, now 54, has also become a prominent voice in the MS community, sharing her own story and reaching out to others who have been diagnosed with the disease, which is characterized by the immune system attacking the protective myelin coating the fibers of the central nervous system. The resulting lesions, or scar tissue, disrupt communication between nerves and the brain.
Courtesy Janice Dean
Janice Dean with her husband Sean and sons Matthew and Theodore“Janice is a warrior,” says her neurologist Dr. Tracy DeAngelis. “She does not allow MS to call the shots in her life. She listens to her body, she rests when she needs to, and she’s a fierce advocate for her- self and others.”
But learning to live with MS has been a journey for Dean. In the early days after her diagnosis, “I had people saying, ‘Don’t tell anybody. That’s going to ruin your career,’ ” she recalls. She found a supportive shoulder in her Fox News colleague Neil Cavuto, who had himself been diagnosed with MS in 1997.
“I called him, and he said, ‘Come to my office,’ ” recalls Dean. “And he just turned off the TVs, sat me right down, and pulled out the Kleenex. I remember him saying, ‘You’re going to be okay, and I’m going to be here for whatever you need.’ ” Cavuto reassured her that their bosses would be supportive as well. “He said if they have to build his-and-her wheelchair ramps on-set, they will,” she recalls. “I had somebody who could hold my hand, and I was so grateful for that.”
While the births of her two sons, Matthew in 2009 and Theodore in 2011, offered brief respites in her MS battle — “We don’t quite know why, but women who are pregnant rarely have big flare-ups,” says Dean — explaining her disease to her boys was its own challenge. Fortunately she got an unexpected assist from a teacher at their elementary school who also has MS.
“I remember Matthew coming home and saying, ‘Today Mrs. Klein told us about this thing that she has called MS,’ ” says Dean. “It was this whole speech about how she was in a wheelchair, but it wasn’t stopping her from doing what she loved. And I had tears in my eyes, because I was like, ‘God gave me this moment.’ And I said, ‘Listen, I have the same thing as Mrs. Klein.’ ”
Courtesy Janice Dean
Janie Dean getting an infusion in April 2018Related: CNN's John King Opens Up About His Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis: 'I'm a Very Lucky Man'
The boys seemed to take the news in stride. “Their first question was, ‘Are you gonna need a wheelchair?’ ” Dean recalls. “And I said, ‘It’s possible, but would that matter?’ And I just remember Matthew saying, ‘No, because we would just ride on the wheelchair.’ ”
Like an estimated 85 percent of those with the disease, Dean has the relapsing-remitting form of MS, in which the flare-ups are followed by periods of remission. While she is currently able to keep flare-ups mostly under control thanks to IV infusion treatments every six months, she knows it’s impossible to predict how her condition might change in the future.
“I could wake up one day and not be able to walk,” says Dean. “That’s just the craziness of this disease. So every day that I’m able to get up and walk is something I’m truly grateful for.”
She also takes care to steer clear of triggers for the disease, making sure she gets enough sleep, avoiding foods like bread and sugar that can cause inflammation and staying out of the sun. “The sun and the heat are like kryptonite for me,” says Dean. “I cannot be outside in the heat for any length of time without having a relapse. So while we have a little tiny beach place, my kids know that when they go out to the beach, Mom will be inside in the air-conditioning.”
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Because she has been so public about her dis- ease, Dean finds that many newly diagnosed MS patients will reach out to her on social media, and she does her best to respond. “I feel connected to those people, because I know what it’s like to think your life is going to be over,” she says. “And I had Neil to say, ‘You’re gonna be okay.’ So I try to let them know that. We’re getting better at fighting MS. And they’re going to be okay.”
As for her own future, Dean tries hard not to worry about the things she’s learned she can’t control. “Every time I go to the doctor, she’ll say, ‘You’re doing great.’ But you know, I’m doing great today. We never know what tomorrow is going to bring. I know that. So it’s kind of a reminder that you can only take it one moment at a time.”
And for Dean, the best way to fight MS is to not let it control her life. “If you see somebody who’s doing something, even though they might be dealing with something else, you feel hopeful, right?” she says. “I’ve heard people say, ‘I see you on TV with a big smile on your face, and that makes me feel that I can do it too.’ That’s really powerful. Sometimes it’s just the one glimmer of sunshine peeking through the clouds. It’s like, ‘Okay, yeah. We can do this together.’ ”
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