August 20, 2019 • 33 mins
Her story is one of resilience. Fox & Friend’s anchor and meteorologist Janice Dean has always found the silver lining in every cloud, no matter what challenge she faced. In this interview, Janice is here to reveal the truth about the stormy days of her past in her new book Mostly Sunny: How I Learned to Keep Smiling through the Rainiest Days.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and broadcasting. I've always, unfortunately, every job that I've
gone through, I've had to deal with some sort of
awkward moments or weird comments, or a power dynamic between
some a man that you know is higher up or
a boss. So I've always been able to walk that
line of laughing it off or removing me from an
(00:22):
awkward situation, or telling him I have a boyfriend, reminding
him I have a boyfriend. Hi, I'm Dr Oz and
(00:47):
this is the Doctor Oz Podcast. Her story is one
of resilience. Fox and Friends anchor and meteorologist Jane's Dean
has always found the silver lining in every cloud, no
matter what challenge she face. Today, as he revealed the
truth about the stormy days of her past and her
brand new book, Mostly Sonny, How I learned to keep
smiling through the radius days. I love all the meteorological
(01:09):
allegories here. Why speak at that? What made you want
to come forward? These are private issues. A lot of
folks don't tell even family about them. Well, some of
these stories my husband hadn't even really gone into detail with,
or I haven't hadn't told him about a lot of these,
you know, stories that maybe he knew sort of the
(01:29):
surface of UH. An example being in Houston when I
had the home invasion. He knew that that had happened
to me, but he didn't know the detail. And I
remember giving him that chapter and he said, okay, let
me read it tonight by myself. And I went to bed,
and the next morning I woke up and I could
tell you know, it was different because he didn't know
(01:53):
the detail. He didn't know how it affected me profoundly.
And um, I also and he felt like he wished
he was there to protect me. Actually, that's the let's
start there. We're gonna go back. That hasn't questions from
even earlier in your life. But tell me one about
the home invasion in Houston, what happened and the miracle
(02:13):
that you're still here. Yeah, well I still. I mean
writing it, Uh, it brings you back because I think
I kind of closed the door on it for a
little bit. I always, I have to say, I think
I think about it every day. Um, whether it's when
I opened the door to go outside, or I make
sure that I've double locked the doors, or I put
the security system on. I think about it every day.
(02:36):
And even though I escaped relatively unscathed. Uh, it's still
left emotional scars on me. So I was living in Houston, uh,
living on my own, uh, and I was in a
first floor apartment in what they call a luxury apartment building,
and so I never felt unsafe. I grew up in
Canada and we didn't never have issues of home invasions
(02:58):
in Canada. I mean we I had never seen a
gun in my life. I you know the old story
about leaving your doors unlocked. I mean we kind of
lived that. So living in a big American city like Houston,
I didn't even really think that I would ever find
myself um facing uh you know, a robber. But one night, Uh,
(03:19):
I had left the window open ever so slightly because
it was a cool night in Houston, which is so rare,
and you know, you're always in a state of air conditioning.
So I thought I'll leave the window open and get
some fresh air forgot to close it. I just remember
I was being poked in my shoulder and I woke
up and I had, um this man uh sitting next
(03:41):
to me on my bed, Um, you know, six inches
away from my face with a knife and uh he
My first reaction was to say hi, to him. I
don't know where that comes from. It was just like, Hi,
can I help you? I didn't panic. I mean I
I my heart was racing, obviously, and I knew what
(04:01):
was going on, but I was very steady and calm,
and I just, uh, I said, can I help you?
Can I what you need? Um? And he, you know,
basically motioned for me to start taking off my clothes.
So I um immediately said to him, I have money,
I have jewelry, I have a new car. I'll give
(04:23):
you all of it, you know, um. And he just
sort of said, no, I want you to take your
clothes off. And um. So I sleep with a lot
of layers, uh, I you know, sleep with sweatpants and
a T shirt and you know, I mean I'm always cold,
but you know what, doctraws. I feel like that might
have also saved my life because I had time to
(04:46):
keep taking layers off. Um. And meanwhile, I keep telling
him I have money, I have jewelry I have I mean,
I made it sound like I had so much money
and jewelry when I didn't. Um. And so I proceeded
to take off clothing um. And I was down to
my underwear and I just thought to myself, Okay, well
(05:07):
this is probably gonna be bad, so I'm just gonna,
you know, pretend that I'm my my mind is discarnated
connected from my body. So whatever he does, I'm just
gonna like just lay here and not react. Um. And
he just then decided, okay, I'm gonna take her jewelry. Okay,
show me where your jewelry is. Uh. And so I
(05:27):
got out of the bed, and meanwhile, I'm thinking in
my mind, Okay, what do I do next? What do
I do next? Do I? I gave him all my jewelry,
and then I said, okay, let's go get the money.
And we walked into the living room and I noticed
that my purse was already he had already gone through
my purse. Uh. So he had taken the money. And
I remember thinking to myself, Okay, what do I do now?
(05:48):
And there was a really loud It was either like
a car alarm or it sounded like a gunshot. I'm
not sure what it was, but it both startled us
to the point of he ran out of the apartment.
And that's when I broke down and started screaming. Um.
And after going through a therapist, uh, she had said
to me, the fact that you remained very calm also
(06:11):
might have helped you. Because I think a lot of
these guys when you get upset and you start screaming,
and that's what they that that excites them. So the
fact that I was very calm and I just spoke
to him very matter of factly, um, might have also
saved me. But it still happened. It was still an
invasion of my space and my home, and it's it's
(06:32):
to this day, it's still with me. Where does it
commist come from? I mean, you speak mostly sunny about
even in high school, You're there are times when it
wasn't so sunny outside for you. Yeah, I'm not sure. Um.
I'm in a business of like connecting with people and
talking to people, and I've always wanted to be a
broadcaster ever since I was five years old. I mean
(06:55):
I start the book about being outside and interviewing some
of my friends, like like I'm, you know, a reporter. Um.
So I've always had a good way to connect with people,
and I feel that that maybe helped me somehow. Like
even though this stranger was in my bedroom, probably wanting
to do terrible things, I was just very calm and
wanted to start a conversation with him. I don't know
(07:17):
where that comes from. I don't know. Well, you speak
in the book about episodes of bullying, and that's often,
you know, with bullying, you don't know how to act,
you don't be commerce, so they don't think it's fun
anymore because they're coming after the prey. But then again,
you want to defend yourself, and being calm makes it
seem like your dociles sometimes, right. I tried to be
friends with them all the time, you know. I It's
(07:39):
funny because I remember one particular girl that used to
bully me, and all I wanted to do is just
be friends with her. I couldn't understand why she didn't
like me for some reason. And at the end of
eighth grade, so the bullying has probably started earlier, early
seventh grade. At the end of eighth grade, she finally
came up to me one day and said, do you
want to come over to my house tonight and we
(08:01):
can you know, uh, do homework or something. And I thought,
oh my gosh, I I finally got through to her,
you know, I finally You know. There are other episodes
where I've had people that have bullied in my life
that I, you know, didn't become friends with. But I
think I've always just maybe I've been a people pleaser
or somebody that maybe thought I could get through to
(08:22):
even the mean kids. Have any of the people that
you've mentioned in the book come back approach you connected
with you again? And the bullies from school, I'm always
curious about that because there's always those conflicts in school
that they're often perceived very in very complex way. It's
not the way I'm friends with that girl on Facebook are. Yeah,
(08:43):
I've I've always wanted to reach out and say to her,
what was it about me that you wanted to tease?
Was it because I didn't look like you? You know,
I was always heavy. I was a heavy kid, and
but I never did that. But she's, you know, we're
friends on Facebook, and I just I just want to
just not even think about it. Since you bring up food,
how have you used food differently in different points of
(09:05):
your life? Well, growing up, I ate a lot. I
I think I saw the relationship my parents were having.
It wasn't a happy one. I didn't, you know, I
never really saw my dad very much. I knew my
mom wasn't very happy at home. Maybe I wasn't getting
the attention that I thought I deserved. You know, I
(09:26):
think that, you know, part of the reason I wanted
to be a performer was because I never could really
get their attention as much as I wanted to. And
I would see them watching CNN all the time, and
I think I was like, well, maybe if I was
on television, maybe they would pay attention to me. So
I always think I got into this business too to
sort of like say hi, Mom and dad, here I
(09:48):
am um. But I used to soothe myself with food. Uh.
My mom, you know, took me to a doctor at
an early age and said, you know, my my daughter
has an eating problem, like she's she doesn't want to
go to school, people tease her. And so I was
on diets and I was probably eight or nine ten,
and you know, I realized that food wasn't something I
(10:10):
should be eating because I would gain weight. But then
when she would leave the house, I would go and
I would find all the cookies and sweets that she
would hide that my brother could eat, and I would
eat them. How did you break How did you break
the psycho? Because I certainly don't look like you have.
I I think I will always have I love hate
(10:31):
relationship with food. Um. But now that I have children,
you know, who are eight and ten, and I see
my you know, my oldest sometimes you know, wanting to
eat more than he probably should. I see that in him,
but instead of pointing him, pointed it out to him.
I don't do what my mom was, and that was
constantly be at him or me. You know, like, you
(10:51):
can't eat that, you shouldn't be eating that. The doctor
said you can't eat that. Um, So I go up
and down. But I also talked about it in the book.
I'm in this perfect us and where women are thin, uh,
and they are you know, that's what people look like
on television. And now I kind of pride myself on
being a little bit different. So I'm an eight to ten,
which size eight ten uh, And I'm actually very proud
(11:15):
of the fact that I'm you know, normal sized. There's
lots more will be come back. Can I pursue this
issue of a bullying in your life because you you're
(11:36):
you're modest about your success, so I'll you brag on you,
but you work with some of the most iconic people
in the business. And two of them particularly have have
mixed reputations. I've gotten to meet both of them, so
I realized on different sides to their stories. But it's
your books, your story, So I'd like to ask you
about first don Imus Um, a guy who's dominant on radio,
(11:57):
has done many filanthropic things. Um. But as you know,
a mixed reputation when you take when you go out
and take chances saying things that you believe to be true.
Not everyone's gonna like it, but he was. He can
be tough on folks, and I love no more about
your relationship with him, Well, we don't have a relationship.
He did come out when the book came out and
(12:20):
there were articles written about how he treated me abusively. Um.
He did issue a statement and said something to the
effect of I always liked Jannisteine and the story she
tells certainly make for a good book. But none of
that happened. I have people I've worked with other women
(12:41):
that have worked with him, that have all that have
reached out to me and said thank you so much
for finally saying something. He was obviously the character that
you saw in the air. UM. You know, he he
would put people in their place, or they would joke
with them or sometimes be yeah, you know mean on air,
(13:01):
and he certainly was that way with me, but off
air he was also not a nice person. Um. When
I first got there, I was told basically, you know,
don't look at him when he comes in, don't address
him until he addresses you. Um, if you do something
that he doesn't like, you will hear about it. He
you know, cursed me out, called me fat and stupid,
(13:23):
and um. There would be the very rare moment when
he was there where he would say, oh, you're doing
a good job, and I would think, oh my gosh,
that little moment where yes, he thinks I'm doing a
good job. I'm gonna keep doing this and maybe things
will change, and then he would go back to the
the mean abuse of behavior. And I actually have people
(13:44):
that still remember me from imus uh the one year
that I worked for him. It made a big impact
on people who listened, and they would say to me,
I'm so glad that you got out, because I could
even hear it on the air that he would, you know,
he would treat you badly. What's bullets story? He would
name bullets after people. Was that real? He carried a
(14:04):
gun around with him when we worked at w F A. N.
And we knew it was loaded because he would, on
a fairly regular basis take the bullets out of the
gun and name them after all of us. He thought
it was funny, but we were all sort of like,
I mean, we would joke about it in the hallways,
but I think, you know, it was a way of survival,
like can you believe what we're going through? And people
(14:26):
knew that management knew, but he was making too much
money for them to to be able to threaten. Did
us a gun? Did ever pointed anybody? Yeah, he would.
There was a traffic reporter there, uh, And we would
all be out in the newsroom and he would come
out of the studio and again he would kind of
snicker under his breath that it was kind of a joke,
(14:46):
but he would he point the gun at the back
of her head because she was not facing him, so
he'd come back and he would point it right at
her head and we would be standing there, and he
would also threaten people. I write about there was an
intern one day and he was he was star struck
by Imus, and we all told him and warned him
like don't look at him, don't talk to him, but
(15:07):
you know he could. He his idol was walking into
the room, and I remember I must just say, you know,
knew that he was watching him and would say, you know, ah,
don't you know stop looking at me, or I'm gonna
you know, I'm gonna shoot that beanie off your head
so fast. And he you know, he was Jewish, so
and you know, we were all sitting there shell shocked
(15:29):
a little bit. I thought to myself, I hope that
this young man goes and tells his dad that, you know,
his idol just basically said he was gonna shoot his
head off if he kept looking at him. What would
what would bother him? And how did it impact you?
Because this this is more your story when when you
can't make sense about what someone's doing. And I have
to assume he thought it was funny or at least
(15:49):
gallows humor. That I don't understand what WHI else you'd
get mad at a fan looking at you? I don't know.
I I think he treated women in differently as well.
He he had a meaner streak with women, and I
always thought to myself, maybe I reminded him of someone
Maybe his mom or an ex wife of a lady
(16:10):
who I don't know, jilt at him or something. Maybe
that's why he was meaner to me. Um, But he
did it to all of the other guys too. That
the guys that I used to work with. I've talked
to them since and um, after the book came out,
and they have said to me, you know, good for you. UM,
just know that we went through it too, you know.
But he still wields some power because I was supposed
(16:32):
to go on a radio show with one or two
of the people that I worked with, and uh, it
was canceled. And I heard it was because Mr Imus said,
don't have her on the program. Well, I can't judge
it wasn't there. It's just, you know, when you hear
these things, I just try to make sense of it.
Of course, of course, I still you know, I was
warned before I took the job. But you have to understand,
(16:52):
I'm a kid from Canada with this opportunity to work
in New York City with one of the biggest brodects.
But I knew very quickly that it was not going
to be a great job for me, and so uh,
you know, I I tried my best to get through it.
I kept thinking that maybe he would like me, like
the bullies that I that I would try to maybe
(17:14):
like the thing here. Maybe maybe I mean, that's how
he treats people he likes. If he's walking around people
he works with, probably people he likes. I don't have
to speak for himself. I'm just saying from your perspective,
I can understand why it's confusing or work. I do
remember the day that I said that I was going
over to Fox News, and my program director went in
to tell him, and he went on the air and
(17:36):
actually said, oh, I heard that pig Jannistine is going
over to work for Fox. They can have her. And
someone told me afterwards that he was really mad that
I didn't come talk to him first before I went
over to Fox. And I thought to myself, Wow, So
if I had gone into him and said I'm thinking
about going somewhere else where they actually might treat me
all right, would he have been nicer? I don't know.
(17:57):
I don't know. You go to Fox and roder Ails
is there, Roger rest of Souls. He's past, but he
and a complex relationship I'll say with some people there too.
How would that work for you? Well, you know, nothing
is black and white, you know, I think people like
to paint these people as you know, either terrible evil people.
(18:18):
You know, right exactly. And with Roger, I I still
have a soft spot for him, even though, um, you know,
early on in my career he did say inappropriate things
made me feel very uncomfortable and and was a pattern
of behavior with some of the women. To what what
kind of things would he say that was overlooked forgiven? Well, listen,
(18:41):
I mean I in broadcasting, I've always, unfortunately every job
that I've gone through, I've had to deal with some
sort of awkward moments or weird comments, or a power
dynamic between some a man that you know is higher
up or a boss than uh you know, somebody a
worker like me. So I've always been able to walk
(19:03):
that line of laughing it off or removing me from
an awkward situation, or telling him I have a boyfriend,
reminding him I have a boyfriend. Um. So when Roger
would make advances, my first job interview with him was
in his office, nothing inappropriate happened. I actually thought he
was so very charismatic and and funny, and um, I
(19:25):
just thought he was great. The second uh job interview
was in a hotel lobby bar that was set up
by one of his secretaries, and it was almost like
a date and he came in. I think it was
probably three o'clock. I told my agent that this meeting
was happening, and she just said, oh, he probably just
wants to go off campus, you know, um. And we
(19:46):
sat down. He asked me to order a drink, and
I remember it was like, you know, three or four
o'clock in the afternoon, and I ordered a drink and
he ordered the same, and then we made small talk.
He said, I've been thinking a lot about you, and
then he reached a over and grabbed my hand and said,
have you been thinking about me? And I was like, ah,
I've been thinking that I maybe want a job. And
(20:10):
you know, he you know, do you have a boyfriend?
And you look so pretty and um, and I just thought,
oh my gosh, this is the weirdest interview I've ever
been on the job at room. But I thought it
was weird, but I wasn't alarmed by it. It was
just maybe he wants to have an affair and I
probably am not going to get this job. But I'm
not attracted to him, so and then he said, listen,
I'm still thinking about you for a role on Fox.
(20:33):
Let me think about it a little bit more. And
he said and he said, I better go. You know,
we don't want people seeing us together or something like that.
So then he left and I was like, Okay, that
was strange. I probably am not going to get a
job there. Uh, And then I would say probably a
few days later, I get a phone call in my apartment.
His assistant says, Janistine, I've got rod Riel's on the phone.
(20:54):
Would you take the call. I said yes, And he
gets on the phone and he says, how are you?
And I said I'm great. And he said a few things.
I've been thinking about you and I said, oh great.
He said, I've been thinking about you over at Fox.
He said, but you know, I've been thinking a lot
about whether. I mean, how are you with phone sex?
I just thought, I thought, oh well, my comedic instinct
(21:17):
kicked in and I said, I am terrible. I'm terrible.
As a matter of fact. He said, well, you have
a boyfriend, you know, he you must do that with him?
And what if I was your boyfriend? I said, no, actually,
I've never done this type of thing before. Uh. And
thankfully then he said, well, I want to hire you
a Fox and UM, and so I I just I
(21:40):
always thought maybe he was joking around, or he wanted
maybe wanted to have an affair and was just waiting
for me to say that I would or not. UM,
and then he hired me at Fox. And to be
honest with you, after that, UM, there were weird comments
when I would go into his office. I certainly was
privy to the spin where he would tell us to
(22:01):
spin around, let me take a look at you. But
honestly I didn't think anything of it. Were in a
visual business. He wanted to, you know, see how I
looked on television. UM. And then it kind of stopped
from there. You know. He would always ask me if
I had a boyfriend, and I always did have a boyfriend.
So I feel like, did you ever make passes a
woman who who did have boyfriends who are married? Yeah,
(22:24):
Hagan Kelly, I mean we we talked a lot when
Megan was married. Was she married when he was making
pass at her? I know, you know what, No, she
was divorced. So I feel that he want he would
ask these questions and see how you responded. And I think,
you know, some women said yes, you know, and um,
(22:47):
but I never you know, it didn't go on. He
didn't keep doing it. And I enjoyed my job there.
I really enjoyed it. And people say, why did you
go over there if he was like that? And my
sponsors I've had to deal with this kind of thing
my entire career and the job previous to that, there
was a man with a gun that would be name
(23:08):
bullets after me so and I liked New York and
I had just met my boyfriend Sean, who I went
to Mary did the women who worked at Fox have
a unspoken agreement of how to deal with all this?
We all sort of especially with Megan, you know, we
we would go out to lunch and we would just
sort of, you know, gently like, hey, were you ever
(23:31):
in a meeting with Roger where he would say something
like this. It was all sort of like, oh, that's
Roger being Roger, But we never knew the extent to
what we now know. Um, it was always just he
was he would test the waters and see how that
was never talked aggression, for example, And she wanted to
know about my story. She I did tell her about
my experience with him a couple of times, but she
(23:54):
never told me about her experience. So we were you
surprised when she came out. Yes, I was. Um. She
would always you know, I wouldn't say we were good friends,
but we were friendly enough that we would talk that,
you know, when she would go into his office, she
would always say, oh, of course he's Roger being Roger.
But I I was shocked when I found out that,
you know, that she that he was, you know, being
(24:19):
very inappropriate with her and to the point of, you know,
she launched a lawsuit. And I think that's when all
of us realized, the ones that had these kinds of stories,
that it was important for us to go in to
the lawyers to tell our stories. Even though we never
thought he was going to be fired. We we thought
Gretchen would lose that case. We never thought Roger was
(24:41):
going to leave so powerful. He was very powerful, and
we didn't really believe to the extent that maybe we
now know how pervasive it was, and you know, we
still don't really know. I can only tell my story,
you know, I can only tell you what I experienced
with him. Um, I never felt like he was going
to touch me or do anything. Do you feel reaffirmed
(25:06):
that the organization Roger the way they did. I feel
like they acted very quickly. Um, and that's a testament
to Mr Murdoch and his sons. And you know, we
sort of formed an underground army of women who found
each other. And even though we thought Roger was never
(25:29):
going to leave, it was important for us to to
tell Paul Weiss our stories so that if Roger wasn't
guilty of these things, he would still be there, you know,
he would. So that's where we thought. We thought, if
it wasn't bad, if it wasn't pervasive enough, then he
would survive. But if this was behavior that was worthy
(25:52):
of being fired, then the law should prevail. More questions
after the break. In the middle of all this, you
(26:12):
get a diagnosis that people don't want to hear, multiple sclerosis.
And I'm just struggling always when people have chronic illnesses
with admiration about how you juggle all the balls when
someone throws you an extra ball and then holds one
of your hands behind your back, which sometimes literally was
happening with MS. So, how did that play a role
(26:34):
in in your career? As you're accelerating and succeeding at
the same time dealing with issues that are at least confusing,
I'll say, being you know, maybe maybe more than that.
So I was diagnosed in two thousand and five. I
had gotten my job at Fox at two and two
thousand and four, and I thought it was going to
be the end of my career because I didn't know
(26:55):
anything about m S. I you know, I knew that
mon Tell Williams had it. UM. I saw wheelchair when
I thought of MS. UM. When I was giving that diagnosis,
I really thought, oh my gosh, everything that I had
ever worked for in my life, including you know, having
a great boyfriend, was probably gonna leave me. UM. But
(27:17):
I was lucky that I worked with somebody that also
had MS and that's Neil Cavuto and he has not
only battled MS, but also had cancer. So it was
Roger going back to the wonderful side of Roger that
when I told him, he said, don't worry about it. Well,
he will help you in any way we can. Uh,
(27:39):
And I think you need to talk to Neil. Neil
has this and he'll, you know, he'll be able to
sort of be a good shoulder for you and somebody
who can help you understand the illness. So I was
lucky to have Neil who was on TV, who was
working at Fox, and somebody that I that I could
go and talk to you that had the same thing,
but that it wasn't upping him. I feel like Neil
(28:02):
had he not been in my life, I I don't
know that I would have, you know, been able to
tell my story or felt secure enough to tell other people,
because a lot of people told me, don't tell anyone
that you have this, that you know, your career would
probably not flourish, and having something chronic, you're probably going
to be out of you know, out of work for
a long period of time. Um. But he was able
(28:25):
to sort of make it be okay for me to
have a safe place to be able to talk about
it and also feel like the company was going to
back me up. You call mostly Sunny a love letter
to folks with chronic illness. I'm curious how you use that,
Why use that phraseology? Because when I was diagnosed, and
(28:45):
I really was at the darkest point in my life. Um,
where again I used to think, oh, living in New
York City and having this great career and this was
this was really what gave me so much of confidence
and and uh and made me feel like I was
doing something important with my life. Um, when you're diagnosed
(29:07):
with MS and you're told that you know you're going
to have this for the rest of your life and
there is no cure, then you're in a really dark place.
And all I wanted to do is find people that
we're doing okay. And I tried to find books of
people that were living with m S. I read Terry
Garr's book, I read Montell's book. I read Meredith Fierre's
husband's book as well, Richard Cohen's book, and even in
(29:30):
his book he kind of said, don't tell your employer,
you know, this is a terrible illness. And it was
all very bleak. But at the time I was looking
for hopeful stories. So I think my answer to that is,
hopefully this book might be a book that someone will
read that they that will make them feel that there's
hope that if this girl has this, but it is
(29:51):
still doing well and is still doing a great career
and has two beautiful boys and a great husband and
is very happy and living a full life, then that
might give them the the hope that they need to
get through the next chapter in their life. But my
wife always has questions. You must have answered them so beautifully.
You come. Come. I never get that. I never get silence.
(30:15):
What I answer questions, I just get another question and
another question. This is very good at asking the extra questions.
What's the extra question? Is it a bonus question? Now?
My my question is for people listening who don't know
where to turn with something like MS is a complicated
It is complicated, and there's varying. It's no one is
(30:36):
the same. It's like a thumb print, right, We're all
very different. Some of us have progressive forms of the
illness where people are in wheelchairs and and um go
a steady decline. But there are many of us now
that are doing well because we have better medications. Even
fifteen years ago when I was diagnosed, there was only
(30:57):
a handful of medications. Now we have like over doesn't
and I'm on something brand new that you know, I
think it is making me feel better. I also talked
about finding the right doctor. Uh, that is so important. UM,
I went through some not so great neurologists. You know
that that maybe we're smart, but didn't give me that
connection that I needed, that that contact. You know, you're
(31:21):
giving somebody a pretty dire diagnosis, I would hope that
you can at least give them some empathy as well.
So I don't know that the progression of MS. What
is that diagnoses? That look like? Is that she's asking
the forecast, the forecast for MS, weather, weather Medical, mostly sonny.
(31:42):
And you'll notice that the initials of mostly sonny are
MS very clever. Get I didn't, but I didn't notice
that until we saw the cover. Be honest with you,
isn't that crazy? Um? So? I mean, listen, everybody's different.
But I believe because I was diagnosed relatively early when
(32:03):
we saw the symptoms, that helped me a great deal.
I look at Selma Blair um, and she's doing wonderful
things for people who are diagnosed with MS. But I
am so mad because I wish she was diagnosed sooner.
I feel like she probably had these symptoms and didn't
know what they were. And had she been diagnosed when
I was diagnosed fifteen years ago, maybe she might, uh,
(32:25):
you know, be living a little bit better. But you know,
I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful my neurologist. Every time I walk in,
she's like, we're getting there, j D. We're getting there.
You know. The medications are better, and if not a cure,
maybe a stop to the progression of the disease. I
think it's mostly sunny for you too. If you want
to hear more from Janessteine checked the book out. It's
(32:46):
very well done. How I Learned to keep smiling through
the rainiest days. I love how you bring it all together.
Thank you, Thank you for having me. It's a great aunt.
Janesstee
M and broadcasting. I've always, unfortunately, every job that I've
gone through, I've had to deal with some sort of
awkward moments or weird comments, or a power dynamic between
some a man that you know is higher up or
a boss. So I've always been able to walk that
line of laughing it off or removing me from an
(00:22):
awkward situation, or telling him I have a boyfriend, reminding
him I have a boyfriend. Hi, I'm Dr Oz and
(00:47):
this is the Doctor Oz Podcast. Her story is one
of resilience. Fox and Friends anchor and meteorologist Jane's Dean
has always found the silver lining in every cloud, no
matter what challenge she face. Today, as he revealed the
truth about the stormy days of her past and her
brand new book, Mostly Sonny, How I learned to keep
smiling through the radius days. I love all the meteorological
(01:09):
allegories here. Why speak at that? What made you want
to come forward? These are private issues. A lot of
folks don't tell even family about them. Well, some of
these stories my husband hadn't even really gone into detail with,
or I haven't hadn't told him about a lot of these,
you know, stories that maybe he knew sort of the
(01:29):
surface of UH. An example being in Houston when I
had the home invasion. He knew that that had happened
to me, but he didn't know the detail. And I
remember giving him that chapter and he said, okay, let
me read it tonight by myself. And I went to bed,
and the next morning I woke up and I could
tell you know, it was different because he didn't know
(01:53):
the detail. He didn't know how it affected me profoundly.
And um, I also and he felt like he wished
he was there to protect me. Actually, that's the let's
start there. We're gonna go back. That hasn't questions from
even earlier in your life. But tell me one about
the home invasion in Houston, what happened and the miracle
(02:13):
that you're still here. Yeah, well I still. I mean
writing it, Uh, it brings you back because I think
I kind of closed the door on it for a
little bit. I always, I have to say, I think
I think about it every day. Um, whether it's when
I opened the door to go outside, or I make
sure that I've double locked the doors, or I put
the security system on. I think about it every day.
(02:36):
And even though I escaped relatively unscathed. Uh, it's still
left emotional scars on me. So I was living in Houston, uh,
living on my own, uh, and I was in a
first floor apartment in what they call a luxury apartment building,
and so I never felt unsafe. I grew up in
Canada and we didn't never have issues of home invasions
(02:58):
in Canada. I mean we I had never seen a
gun in my life. I you know the old story
about leaving your doors unlocked. I mean we kind of
lived that. So living in a big American city like Houston,
I didn't even really think that I would ever find
myself um facing uh you know, a robber. But one night, Uh,
(03:19):
I had left the window open ever so slightly because
it was a cool night in Houston, which is so rare,
and you know, you're always in a state of air conditioning.
So I thought I'll leave the window open and get
some fresh air forgot to close it. I just remember
I was being poked in my shoulder and I woke
up and I had, um this man uh sitting next
(03:41):
to me on my bed, Um, you know, six inches
away from my face with a knife and uh he
My first reaction was to say hi, to him. I
don't know where that comes from. It was just like, Hi,
can I help you? I didn't panic. I mean I
I my heart was racing, obviously, and I knew what
(04:01):
was going on, but I was very steady and calm,
and I just, uh, I said, can I help you?
Can I what you need? Um? And he, you know,
basically motioned for me to start taking off my clothes.
So I um immediately said to him, I have money,
I have jewelry, I have a new car. I'll give
(04:23):
you all of it, you know, um. And he just
sort of said, no, I want you to take your
clothes off. And um. So I sleep with a lot
of layers, uh, I you know, sleep with sweatpants and
a T shirt and you know, I mean I'm always cold,
but you know what, doctraws. I feel like that might
have also saved my life because I had time to
(04:46):
keep taking layers off. Um. And meanwhile, I keep telling
him I have money, I have jewelry I have I mean,
I made it sound like I had so much money
and jewelry when I didn't. Um. And so I proceeded
to take off clothing um. And I was down to
my underwear and I just thought to myself, Okay, well
(05:07):
this is probably gonna be bad, so I'm just gonna,
you know, pretend that I'm my my mind is discarnated
connected from my body. So whatever he does, I'm just
gonna like just lay here and not react. Um. And
he just then decided, okay, I'm gonna take her jewelry. Okay,
show me where your jewelry is. Uh. And so I
(05:27):
got out of the bed, and meanwhile, I'm thinking in
my mind, Okay, what do I do next? What do
I do next? Do I? I gave him all my jewelry,
and then I said, okay, let's go get the money.
And we walked into the living room and I noticed
that my purse was already he had already gone through
my purse. Uh. So he had taken the money. And
I remember thinking to myself, Okay, what do I do now?
(05:48):
And there was a really loud It was either like
a car alarm or it sounded like a gunshot. I'm
not sure what it was, but it both startled us
to the point of he ran out of the apartment.
And that's when I broke down and started screaming. Um.
And after going through a therapist, uh, she had said
to me, the fact that you remained very calm also
(06:11):
might have helped you. Because I think a lot of
these guys when you get upset and you start screaming,
and that's what they that that excites them. So the
fact that I was very calm and I just spoke
to him very matter of factly, um, might have also
saved me. But it still happened. It was still an
invasion of my space and my home, and it's it's
(06:32):
to this day, it's still with me. Where does it
commist come from? I mean, you speak mostly sunny about
even in high school, You're there are times when it
wasn't so sunny outside for you. Yeah, I'm not sure. Um.
I'm in a business of like connecting with people and
talking to people, and I've always wanted to be a
broadcaster ever since I was five years old. I mean
(06:55):
I start the book about being outside and interviewing some
of my friends, like like I'm, you know, a reporter. Um.
So I've always had a good way to connect with people,
and I feel that that maybe helped me somehow. Like
even though this stranger was in my bedroom, probably wanting
to do terrible things, I was just very calm and
wanted to start a conversation with him. I don't know
(07:17):
where that comes from. I don't know. Well, you speak
in the book about episodes of bullying, and that's often,
you know, with bullying, you don't know how to act,
you don't be commerce, so they don't think it's fun
anymore because they're coming after the prey. But then again,
you want to defend yourself, and being calm makes it
seem like your dociles sometimes, right. I tried to be
friends with them all the time, you know. I It's
(07:39):
funny because I remember one particular girl that used to
bully me, and all I wanted to do is just
be friends with her. I couldn't understand why she didn't
like me for some reason. And at the end of
eighth grade, so the bullying has probably started earlier, early
seventh grade. At the end of eighth grade, she finally
came up to me one day and said, do you
want to come over to my house tonight and we
(08:01):
can you know, uh, do homework or something. And I thought,
oh my gosh, I I finally got through to her,
you know, I finally You know. There are other episodes
where I've had people that have bullied in my life
that I, you know, didn't become friends with. But I
think I've always just maybe I've been a people pleaser
or somebody that maybe thought I could get through to
(08:22):
even the mean kids. Have any of the people that
you've mentioned in the book come back approach you connected
with you again? And the bullies from school, I'm always
curious about that because there's always those conflicts in school
that they're often perceived very in very complex way. It's
not the way I'm friends with that girl on Facebook are. Yeah,
(08:43):
I've I've always wanted to reach out and say to her,
what was it about me that you wanted to tease?
Was it because I didn't look like you? You know,
I was always heavy. I was a heavy kid, and
but I never did that. But she's, you know, we're
friends on Facebook, and I just I just want to
just not even think about it. Since you bring up food,
how have you used food differently in different points of
(09:05):
your life? Well, growing up, I ate a lot. I
I think I saw the relationship my parents were having.
It wasn't a happy one. I didn't, you know, I
never really saw my dad very much. I knew my
mom wasn't very happy at home. Maybe I wasn't getting
the attention that I thought I deserved. You know, I
(09:26):
think that, you know, part of the reason I wanted
to be a performer was because I never could really
get their attention as much as I wanted to. And
I would see them watching CNN all the time, and
I think I was like, well, maybe if I was
on television, maybe they would pay attention to me. So
I always think I got into this business too to
sort of like say hi, Mom and dad, here I
(09:48):
am um. But I used to soothe myself with food. Uh.
My mom, you know, took me to a doctor at
an early age and said, you know, my my daughter
has an eating problem, like she's she doesn't want to
go to school, people tease her. And so I was
on diets and I was probably eight or nine ten,
and you know, I realized that food wasn't something I
(10:10):
should be eating because I would gain weight. But then
when she would leave the house, I would go and
I would find all the cookies and sweets that she
would hide that my brother could eat, and I would
eat them. How did you break How did you break
the psycho? Because I certainly don't look like you have.
I I think I will always have I love hate
(10:31):
relationship with food. Um. But now that I have children,
you know, who are eight and ten, and I see
my you know, my oldest sometimes you know, wanting to
eat more than he probably should. I see that in him,
but instead of pointing him, pointed it out to him.
I don't do what my mom was, and that was
constantly be at him or me. You know, like, you
(10:51):
can't eat that, you shouldn't be eating that. The doctor
said you can't eat that. Um, So I go up
and down. But I also talked about it in the book.
I'm in this perfect us and where women are thin, uh,
and they are you know, that's what people look like
on television. And now I kind of pride myself on
being a little bit different. So I'm an eight to ten,
which size eight ten uh, And I'm actually very proud
(11:15):
of the fact that I'm you know, normal sized. There's
lots more will be come back. Can I pursue this
issue of a bullying in your life because you you're
(11:36):
you're modest about your success, so I'll you brag on you,
but you work with some of the most iconic people
in the business. And two of them particularly have have
mixed reputations. I've gotten to meet both of them, so
I realized on different sides to their stories. But it's
your books, your story, So I'd like to ask you
about first don Imus Um, a guy who's dominant on radio,
(11:57):
has done many filanthropic things. Um. But as you know,
a mixed reputation when you take when you go out
and take chances saying things that you believe to be true.
Not everyone's gonna like it, but he was. He can
be tough on folks, and I love no more about
your relationship with him, Well, we don't have a relationship.
He did come out when the book came out and
(12:20):
there were articles written about how he treated me abusively. Um.
He did issue a statement and said something to the
effect of I always liked Jannisteine and the story she
tells certainly make for a good book. But none of
that happened. I have people I've worked with other women
(12:41):
that have worked with him, that have all that have
reached out to me and said thank you so much
for finally saying something. He was obviously the character that
you saw in the air. UM. You know, he he
would put people in their place, or they would joke
with them or sometimes be yeah, you know mean on air,
(13:01):
and he certainly was that way with me, but off
air he was also not a nice person. Um. When
I first got there, I was told basically, you know,
don't look at him when he comes in, don't address
him until he addresses you. Um, if you do something
that he doesn't like, you will hear about it. He
you know, cursed me out, called me fat and stupid,
(13:23):
and um. There would be the very rare moment when
he was there where he would say, oh, you're doing
a good job, and I would think, oh my gosh,
that little moment where yes, he thinks I'm doing a
good job. I'm gonna keep doing this and maybe things
will change, and then he would go back to the
the mean abuse of behavior. And I actually have people
(13:44):
that still remember me from imus uh the one year
that I worked for him. It made a big impact
on people who listened, and they would say to me,
I'm so glad that you got out, because I could
even hear it on the air that he would, you know,
he would treat you badly. What's bullets story? He would
name bullets after people. Was that real? He carried a
(14:04):
gun around with him when we worked at w F A. N.
And we knew it was loaded because he would, on
a fairly regular basis take the bullets out of the
gun and name them after all of us. He thought
it was funny, but we were all sort of like,
I mean, we would joke about it in the hallways,
but I think, you know, it was a way of survival,
like can you believe what we're going through? And people
(14:26):
knew that management knew, but he was making too much
money for them to to be able to threaten. Did
us a gun? Did ever pointed anybody? Yeah, he would.
There was a traffic reporter there, uh, And we would
all be out in the newsroom and he would come
out of the studio and again he would kind of
snicker under his breath that it was kind of a joke,
(14:46):
but he would he point the gun at the back
of her head because she was not facing him, so
he'd come back and he would point it right at
her head and we would be standing there, and he
would also threaten people. I write about there was an
intern one day and he was he was star struck
by Imus, and we all told him and warned him
like don't look at him, don't talk to him, but
(15:07):
you know he could. He his idol was walking into
the room, and I remember I must just say, you know,
knew that he was watching him and would say, you know, ah,
don't you know stop looking at me, or I'm gonna
you know, I'm gonna shoot that beanie off your head
so fast. And he you know, he was Jewish, so
and you know, we were all sitting there shell shocked
(15:29):
a little bit. I thought to myself, I hope that
this young man goes and tells his dad that, you know,
his idol just basically said he was gonna shoot his
head off if he kept looking at him. What would
what would bother him? And how did it impact you?
Because this this is more your story when when you
can't make sense about what someone's doing. And I have
to assume he thought it was funny or at least
(15:49):
gallows humor. That I don't understand what WHI else you'd
get mad at a fan looking at you? I don't know.
I I think he treated women in differently as well.
He he had a meaner streak with women, and I
always thought to myself, maybe I reminded him of someone
Maybe his mom or an ex wife of a lady
(16:10):
who I don't know, jilt at him or something. Maybe
that's why he was meaner to me. Um, But he
did it to all of the other guys too. That
the guys that I used to work with. I've talked
to them since and um, after the book came out,
and they have said to me, you know, good for you. UM,
just know that we went through it too, you know.
But he still wields some power because I was supposed
(16:32):
to go on a radio show with one or two
of the people that I worked with, and uh, it
was canceled. And I heard it was because Mr Imus said,
don't have her on the program. Well, I can't judge
it wasn't there. It's just, you know, when you hear
these things, I just try to make sense of it.
Of course, of course, I still you know, I was
warned before I took the job. But you have to understand,
(16:52):
I'm a kid from Canada with this opportunity to work
in New York City with one of the biggest brodects.
But I knew very quickly that it was not going
to be a great job for me, and so uh,
you know, I I tried my best to get through it.
I kept thinking that maybe he would like me, like
the bullies that I that I would try to maybe
(17:14):
like the thing here. Maybe maybe I mean, that's how
he treats people he likes. If he's walking around people
he works with, probably people he likes. I don't have
to speak for himself. I'm just saying from your perspective,
I can understand why it's confusing or work. I do
remember the day that I said that I was going
over to Fox News, and my program director went in
to tell him, and he went on the air and
(17:36):
actually said, oh, I heard that pig Jannistine is going
over to work for Fox. They can have her. And
someone told me afterwards that he was really mad that
I didn't come talk to him first before I went
over to Fox. And I thought to myself, Wow, So
if I had gone into him and said I'm thinking
about going somewhere else where they actually might treat me
all right, would he have been nicer? I don't know.
(17:57):
I don't know. You go to Fox and roder Ails
is there, Roger rest of Souls. He's past, but he
and a complex relationship I'll say with some people there too.
How would that work for you? Well, you know, nothing
is black and white, you know, I think people like
to paint these people as you know, either terrible evil people.
(18:18):
You know, right exactly. And with Roger, I I still
have a soft spot for him, even though, um, you know,
early on in my career he did say inappropriate things
made me feel very uncomfortable and and was a pattern
of behavior with some of the women. To what what
kind of things would he say that was overlooked forgiven? Well, listen,
(18:41):
I mean I in broadcasting, I've always, unfortunately every job
that I've gone through, I've had to deal with some
sort of awkward moments or weird comments, or a power
dynamic between some a man that you know is higher
up or a boss than uh you know, somebody a
worker like me. So I've always been able to walk
(19:03):
that line of laughing it off or removing me from
an awkward situation, or telling him I have a boyfriend,
reminding him I have a boyfriend. Um. So when Roger
would make advances, my first job interview with him was
in his office, nothing inappropriate happened. I actually thought he
was so very charismatic and and funny, and um, I
(19:25):
just thought he was great. The second uh job interview
was in a hotel lobby bar that was set up
by one of his secretaries, and it was almost like
a date and he came in. I think it was
probably three o'clock. I told my agent that this meeting
was happening, and she just said, oh, he probably just
wants to go off campus, you know, um. And we
(19:46):
sat down. He asked me to order a drink, and
I remember it was like, you know, three or four
o'clock in the afternoon, and I ordered a drink and
he ordered the same, and then we made small talk.
He said, I've been thinking a lot about you, and
then he reached a over and grabbed my hand and said,
have you been thinking about me? And I was like, ah,
I've been thinking that I maybe want a job. And
(20:10):
you know, he you know, do you have a boyfriend?
And you look so pretty and um, and I just thought,
oh my gosh, this is the weirdest interview I've ever
been on the job at room. But I thought it
was weird, but I wasn't alarmed by it. It was
just maybe he wants to have an affair and I
probably am not going to get this job. But I'm
not attracted to him, so and then he said, listen,
I'm still thinking about you for a role on Fox.
(20:33):
Let me think about it a little bit more. And
he said and he said, I better go. You know,
we don't want people seeing us together or something like that.
So then he left and I was like, Okay, that
was strange. I probably am not going to get a
job there. Uh, And then I would say probably a
few days later, I get a phone call in my apartment.
His assistant says, Janistine, I've got rod Riel's on the phone.
(20:54):
Would you take the call. I said yes, And he
gets on the phone and he says, how are you?
And I said I'm great. And he said a few things.
I've been thinking about you and I said, oh great.
He said, I've been thinking about you over at Fox.
He said, but you know, I've been thinking a lot
about whether. I mean, how are you with phone sex?
I just thought, I thought, oh well, my comedic instinct
(21:17):
kicked in and I said, I am terrible. I'm terrible.
As a matter of fact. He said, well, you have
a boyfriend, you know, he you must do that with him?
And what if I was your boyfriend? I said, no, actually,
I've never done this type of thing before. Uh. And
thankfully then he said, well, I want to hire you
a Fox and UM, and so I I just I
(21:40):
always thought maybe he was joking around, or he wanted
maybe wanted to have an affair and was just waiting
for me to say that I would or not. UM,
and then he hired me at Fox. And to be
honest with you, after that, UM, there were weird comments
when I would go into his office. I certainly was
privy to the spin where he would tell us to
(22:01):
spin around, let me take a look at you. But
honestly I didn't think anything of it. Were in a
visual business. He wanted to, you know, see how I
looked on television. UM. And then it kind of stopped
from there. You know. He would always ask me if
I had a boyfriend, and I always did have a boyfriend.
So I feel like, did you ever make passes a
woman who who did have boyfriends who are married? Yeah,
(22:24):
Hagan Kelly, I mean we we talked a lot when
Megan was married. Was she married when he was making
pass at her? I know, you know what, No, she
was divorced. So I feel that he want he would
ask these questions and see how you responded. And I think,
you know, some women said yes, you know, and um,
(22:47):
but I never you know, it didn't go on. He
didn't keep doing it. And I enjoyed my job there.
I really enjoyed it. And people say, why did you
go over there if he was like that? And my
sponsors I've had to deal with this kind of thing
my entire career and the job previous to that, there
was a man with a gun that would be name
(23:08):
bullets after me so and I liked New York and
I had just met my boyfriend Sean, who I went
to Mary did the women who worked at Fox have
a unspoken agreement of how to deal with all this?
We all sort of especially with Megan, you know, we
we would go out to lunch and we would just
sort of, you know, gently like, hey, were you ever
(23:31):
in a meeting with Roger where he would say something
like this. It was all sort of like, oh, that's
Roger being Roger, But we never knew the extent to
what we now know. Um, it was always just he
was he would test the waters and see how that
was never talked aggression, for example, And she wanted to
know about my story. She I did tell her about
my experience with him a couple of times, but she
(23:54):
never told me about her experience. So we were you
surprised when she came out. Yes, I was. Um. She
would always you know, I wouldn't say we were good friends,
but we were friendly enough that we would talk that,
you know, when she would go into his office, she
would always say, oh, of course he's Roger being Roger.
But I I was shocked when I found out that,
you know, that she that he was, you know, being
(24:19):
very inappropriate with her and to the point of, you know,
she launched a lawsuit. And I think that's when all
of us realized, the ones that had these kinds of stories,
that it was important for us to go in to
the lawyers to tell our stories. Even though we never
thought he was going to be fired. We we thought
Gretchen would lose that case. We never thought Roger was
(24:41):
going to leave so powerful. He was very powerful, and
we didn't really believe to the extent that maybe we
now know how pervasive it was, and you know, we
still don't really know. I can only tell my story,
you know, I can only tell you what I experienced
with him. Um, I never felt like he was going
to touch me or do anything. Do you feel reaffirmed
(25:06):
that the organization Roger the way they did. I feel
like they acted very quickly. Um, and that's a testament
to Mr Murdoch and his sons. And you know, we
sort of formed an underground army of women who found
each other. And even though we thought Roger was never
(25:29):
going to leave, it was important for us to to
tell Paul Weiss our stories so that if Roger wasn't
guilty of these things, he would still be there, you know,
he would. So that's where we thought. We thought, if
it wasn't bad, if it wasn't pervasive enough, then he
would survive. But if this was behavior that was worthy
(25:52):
of being fired, then the law should prevail. More questions
after the break. In the middle of all this, you
(26:12):
get a diagnosis that people don't want to hear, multiple sclerosis.
And I'm just struggling always when people have chronic illnesses
with admiration about how you juggle all the balls when
someone throws you an extra ball and then holds one
of your hands behind your back, which sometimes literally was
happening with MS. So, how did that play a role
(26:34):
in in your career? As you're accelerating and succeeding at
the same time dealing with issues that are at least confusing,
I'll say, being you know, maybe maybe more than that.
So I was diagnosed in two thousand and five. I
had gotten my job at Fox at two and two
thousand and four, and I thought it was going to
be the end of my career because I didn't know
(26:55):
anything about m S. I you know, I knew that
mon Tell Williams had it. UM. I saw wheelchair when
I thought of MS. UM. When I was giving that diagnosis,
I really thought, oh my gosh, everything that I had
ever worked for in my life, including you know, having
a great boyfriend, was probably gonna leave me. UM. But
(27:17):
I was lucky that I worked with somebody that also
had MS and that's Neil Cavuto and he has not
only battled MS, but also had cancer. So it was
Roger going back to the wonderful side of Roger that
when I told him, he said, don't worry about it. Well,
he will help you in any way we can. Uh,
(27:39):
And I think you need to talk to Neil. Neil
has this and he'll, you know, he'll be able to
sort of be a good shoulder for you and somebody
who can help you understand the illness. So I was
lucky to have Neil who was on TV, who was
working at Fox, and somebody that I that I could
go and talk to you that had the same thing,
but that it wasn't upping him. I feel like Neil
(28:02):
had he not been in my life, I I don't
know that I would have, you know, been able to
tell my story or felt secure enough to tell other people,
because a lot of people told me, don't tell anyone
that you have this, that you know, your career would
probably not flourish, and having something chronic, you're probably going
to be out of you know, out of work for
a long period of time. Um. But he was able
(28:25):
to sort of make it be okay for me to
have a safe place to be able to talk about
it and also feel like the company was going to
back me up. You call mostly Sunny a love letter
to folks with chronic illness. I'm curious how you use that,
Why use that phraseology? Because when I was diagnosed, and
(28:45):
I really was at the darkest point in my life. Um,
where again I used to think, oh, living in New
York City and having this great career and this was
this was really what gave me so much of confidence
and and uh and made me feel like I was
doing something important with my life. Um, when you're diagnosed
(29:07):
with MS and you're told that you know you're going
to have this for the rest of your life and
there is no cure, then you're in a really dark place.
And all I wanted to do is find people that
we're doing okay. And I tried to find books of
people that were living with m S. I read Terry
Garr's book, I read Montell's book. I read Meredith Fierre's
husband's book as well, Richard Cohen's book, and even in
(29:30):
his book he kind of said, don't tell your employer,
you know, this is a terrible illness. And it was
all very bleak. But at the time I was looking
for hopeful stories. So I think my answer to that is,
hopefully this book might be a book that someone will
read that they that will make them feel that there's
hope that if this girl has this, but it is
(29:51):
still doing well and is still doing a great career
and has two beautiful boys and a great husband and
is very happy and living a full life, then that
might give them the the hope that they need to
get through the next chapter in their life. But my
wife always has questions. You must have answered them so beautifully.
You come. Come. I never get that. I never get silence.
(30:15):
What I answer questions, I just get another question and
another question. This is very good at asking the extra questions.
What's the extra question? Is it a bonus question? Now?
My my question is for people listening who don't know
where to turn with something like MS is a complicated
It is complicated, and there's varying. It's no one is
(30:36):
the same. It's like a thumb print, right, We're all
very different. Some of us have progressive forms of the
illness where people are in wheelchairs and and um go
a steady decline. But there are many of us now
that are doing well because we have better medications. Even
fifteen years ago when I was diagnosed, there was only
(30:57):
a handful of medications. Now we have like over doesn't
and I'm on something brand new that you know, I
think it is making me feel better. I also talked
about finding the right doctor. Uh, that is so important. UM,
I went through some not so great neurologists. You know
that that maybe we're smart, but didn't give me that
connection that I needed, that that contact. You know, you're
(31:21):
giving somebody a pretty dire diagnosis, I would hope that
you can at least give them some empathy as well.
So I don't know that the progression of MS. What
is that diagnoses? That look like? Is that she's asking
the forecast, the forecast for MS, weather, weather Medical, mostly sonny.
(31:42):
And you'll notice that the initials of mostly sonny are
MS very clever. Get I didn't, but I didn't notice
that until we saw the cover. Be honest with you,
isn't that crazy? Um? So? I mean, listen, everybody's different.
But I believe because I was diagnosed relatively early when
(32:03):
we saw the symptoms, that helped me a great deal.
I look at Selma Blair um, and she's doing wonderful
things for people who are diagnosed with MS. But I
am so mad because I wish she was diagnosed sooner.
I feel like she probably had these symptoms and didn't
know what they were. And had she been diagnosed when
I was diagnosed fifteen years ago, maybe she might, uh,
(32:25):
you know, be living a little bit better. But you know,
I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful my neurologist. Every time I walk in,
she's like, we're getting there, j D. We're getting there.
You know. The medications are better, and if not a cure,
maybe a stop to the progression of the disease. I
think it's mostly sunny for you too. If you want
to hear more from Janessteine checked the book out. It's
(32:46):
very well done. How I Learned to keep smiling through
the rainiest days. I love how you bring it all together.
Thank you, Thank you for having me. It's a great aunt.
Janesstee
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