Shannon Bream smiling© Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Fox News host Shannon Bream is no stranger to hardship — she’s been to hell and back and lived to tell the tale. As Bream counted down the days to her 40th birthday a couple of years ago, she started experiencing some worrying symptoms — eye pain so severe that it woke her up at night. “I was in searing pain,” she told People. “I couldn’t get any rest.” The only way she could prevent it was by using eye drops every two hours during the night. She had alarms set to ensure she wouldn’t stay asleep longer than that — doing so meant risking severe discomfort. “It felt as if someone was slashing my eyeball with a hot poker,” Bream wrote in an article for Women’s Health.

Unfortunately, her symptoms only worsened, and as time went on, Bream found herself in agony almost constantly. What was even more frightening was that it was starting to affect her sight, and she often experienced double vision. Sometimes, it even led to migraines. Bream hid her health battle from her colleagues at Fox, only confiding in her husband. Uninterrupted sleep became a novelty, and for two long, excruciating years, Bream lived with the pain, and it infiltrated every aspect of her life, making her utterly miserable.

Shannon Bream posing on the red carpet© Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

When Bream’s optometrist referred her to a specialist, she was hopeful to get a diagnosis. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. In fact, the doctor didn’t take her symptoms seriously at all.

“You know what I think? You’re very emotional,” Bream recalled being told in an article she wrote for Women’s Health. Not being taken seriously by her doctor was a devastating blow — the Fox News host had traveled an hour just to see him — and she felt more hopeless and alone than ever. “He didn’t offer me much of a diagnosis. Instead, he made a couple of suggestions to lessen the pain and asked me to come back after some time had passed,” Bream shared with Women’s Health. “I vowed I’d never go back. It was all I could do to get to my car before I burst into tears,” she added.

Speaking to People, Bream said having a doctor who didn’t take her symptoms seriously and instead made her feel like she was a drama queen was very harmful, and it left her with a dangerous sense of hopelessness.

Shannon Bream Became Depressed

Shannon Bream looking serious© Shannon Finney/Getty Images

Dealing with debilitating pain day and night with no relief in sight obviously took its toll on Shannon Bream. While delivering a speech at her alma mater, Liberty University, a Christian institution in Virginia, the Fox News host followed in the steps of many other stars who have opened up about their health issues, telling the gathered students that her mental health started taking a turn for the worse after several months of chronic eye pain. “I was spiraling into a darker and darker place,” she confessed. “I felt the walls closing in around me. I had no answers. I had nothing but chronic pain and a mystery.”

In the piece she wrote for Women’s Health, Bream recalls how she stopped truly living. “Every day simply became about survival,” she wrote. A good night’s sleep without discomfort became a pipe dream, and having no answers for what was wrong with her left the Fox News Host without hope. She tried to find people on the internet with similar symptoms, and there turned out to be many of them, all without a diagnosis. “They also talked about the only thing that felt hopeful: ending their pain by ending their lives,” Bream wrote. “I totally got it. There were many times I couldn’t imagine living another 40 years in endless pain and debilitating fatigue.” Bream confided in her husband about her dark thoughts, and he encouraged her to keep advocating for herself and search for a doctor willing to help, and thankfully, Bream finally found this person.

Dr. Thomas Clinch, a cornea specialist, diagnosed Bream with epithelial basement membrane dystrophy and recurrent corneal erosions, which simply means that her cornea tears frequently (sometimes multiple times a day), hence the excruciating pain. Clinch told People that while the condition has no cure, symptoms can be treated.

Her Husband Got Diagnosed With A Brain Tumor And Her Dad Died Suddenly

Shannon Bream looking serious© Shannon Finney/Getty Images

In 2020, Shannon Bream recounted a harrowing experience she and her husband went through before they got married. Telling her story on Fox Nation’s “Ride To Work,” Bream recounted how, while she was still in law school, her husband-to-be, Sheldon Bream, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The diagnosis came after months of Sheldon experiencing a ringing sound in his ear. Doctors were puzzled, and eventually, they decided to check for tumors. Unfortunately, they discovered one resembling the size of a golf ball. Sheldon had to undergo a 9-hour surgery to remove the tumor, and then they had to wait to hear whether it was malignant or not. Luckily, it wasn’t.

Bream recalled how the whole ordeal changed their lives. “It just kind of threw our whole world into a tailspin,” she told “Ride To Work.” In the aftermath of the surgery, Sheldon experienced some complications, and ended up with facial paralysis (which luckily later resolved).

Bream has been no stranger when it comes to the fear of losing a loved one. In 2019, she took to Facebook to pay tribute to her father, who died suddenly six years prior. “I never got to say goodbye,” Bream lamented. “I sure wish I could give him a call …” On X, formerly Twitter, Bream added to her tribute. “I remember back then I was so worried I would forget what his voice sounded like. I haven’t, and I remember all the important things he taught me,” she wrote.

Shannon Bream Got Diagnosed With Cancer

Shannon Bream looking at the camera© Paul Morigi/Getty Images

After Shannon Bream stood by her husband during his cancer scare, she had one of her own a few years later. In 2016, the Fox News host took to Facebook on the one year anniversary of receiving the scary news. Bream went for her regular mammogram, but the routine visit turned into a terrifying one when the doctor spotted something amiss and advised Bream to get a biopsy done as soon as possible. The “Finding the Bright Side” author’s biopsy showed she had breast cancer, and doctors advised her to undergo surgery immediately.

Bream shared her journey in a Facebook post a year later, and while finding ways to cope when someone you love gets diagnosed with cancer can be hard, Bream recalled how wonderful her husband had been during this trying time. She underwent surgery and doctors managed to remove the cancer entirely, but warned her that she was genetically predisposed to develop breast cancer, something Bream wasn’t aware of before then. While not the best news, the Fox News host took it in stride, seeing it as an opportunity to take better care of herself. She does, however, have a higher chance of getting cancer again in the future because of this, Cleveland Clinic notes. And unfortunately, women like Bream who develop breast cancer again later in life often find that it’s more aggressive.

What made Bream’s cancer journey all the more arduous was her decision to largely keep her diagnosis private. She tried to continue living her life as normal and went back to work shortly after surgery, with only a select few people knowing that she was in recovery.

She Received Vocal Criticism From The Trump Campaign

Shannon Bream smiling© Shannon Finney/Getty Images

Shannon Bream might work for Fox News, but it might be safe to say she’s not as biased as many of her colleagues, and Donald Trump, who favors Fox News over all other news networks, did not take kindly to Bream not taking his side on every occasion. Bream most notably ruffled some MAGA feathers when she corrected Trump’s favorite (and arguably worst) lawyer, Alina Habba outside the New York courthouse during Trump’s hush money trial. In what turned into one of Habba’s most awkward moments on Fox News, Bream reminded the Trump attorney that President Joe Biden had nothing to do with Trump’s trial. Habba appeared shocked by Bream’s resistance and insisted the trial was politically motivated, but Bream continued to clap back with facts.

Trump later attacked Bream on Truth Social. “I never knew Shannon Bream was so ‘naïve.’ In her interview with my Representative, Alina Habba, Shannon just suggested that Crooked Joe Biden was not involved in my Show Trial. HOW STUPID!” he wrote.

This wasn’t the first time Bream got under the Republicans’ skin. Days earlier, she got caught up in a heated exchange with New York Representative Elise Stefanik when she questioned the congresswoman on her past comments about Trump. Stefanik used to be one of the two-term president’s fiercest critics and reportedly called him “too awful and ridiculous to be taken seriously,” according to sources who spoke to The New York Times. Stefanik did not appreciate Bream bringing up the article during the interview. “Well Shannon it’s a disgrace that you would quote The New York Times with nameless, faceless, false sources,” Stefanik argued, with Bream then pointing out that many of the sources were named. Needless to say, Bream wasn’t the Republicans’ favorite Fox News host that day.