Fox News correspondent Shannon Bream can relate to Bob Costas. While an eye infection has sidelined the NBC Olympics anchor for most of this week, Bream struggled with a rare, incurable eye condition for a year-and-a-half, impacting every aspect of her life: from getting a good night’s sleep to reporting outdoor live shots for Fox News.
“Physically I was in excruciating pain,” Bream told TVNewser this afternoon about her Recurrent Corneal Erosion syndrome. At times she woke up in the middle of the night feeling like her “cornea was tearing off.”
“There’s part of you that, when you show up for work, you kick into professional mode and try to do your absolute best,” the Washington, DC-based reporter said.
Sunny days were especially hard, especially when outdoor live shots was called for.
Reading a teleprompter while filling in on the anchor desk was also tough: “Double vision makes reading the prompter very tricky,” she said.
Bream is sympathetic to Costas’s condition.
“When your physical symptoms become so exacerbated that they’re open to the naked eye, and every viewer, you have to sometimes cry uncle.”
Fortunately for Bream, her current treatment regimen has her in much better condition, with renewed energy and a return to the gym.
“Be easy on yourself,” she advised other journalists dealing with a health issue. “We all hate to be sitting on the sidelines like Bob Costas is doing right now, but you just have to give yourself permission to take it easy where you need to and reserve your energy for what you absolutely need to do—your job.”