Fox News and Fox Business host Neil Cavuto reveals he was not sure he would return to work after his recent open heart surgery, telling The Wrap he experienced “the most pain I’ve ever felt … this was a bitch.”
Cavuto says doctors discovered an artery had completely closed during a stress test, requiring immediate surgery. The recovery, he says, was brutal. “Once they rip your chest open, stop your heart and have you on a machine for four hours as they’re operating on you … you come out of that just writhing in pain.”
Cavuto missed the conventions and the sudden end to the Fox News career of Roger Ailes. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “People have told me it was a good thing you were [out] at the time,” but Cavuto says the company’s efforts to steady the ship–including the arrival of Rupert Murdoch as acting chief executive, and the naming of Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy as co-presidents–have been effective. “That was very reassuring.”