Zelasko battles all the way back
After difficult '07, she returns to Fox
When Jeanne Zelasko goes on the air at 3:30 today as studio host of Fox's Baseball Game of the Week, she may not look any different, but she promises she is.
The 41-year-old broadcast veteran had a life-changing 2007. She lost her father to a heart attack, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer Dec. 18, and her sister suffered a brain aneurysm four days later.
The good news is Zelasko and her sister are now healthy.
"I've always loved my job, I've always appreciated my job, I've never had one moment where I've dreaded going into work," Zelasko said yesterday by telephone from Los Angeles. "But it's like a really different feeling now. I've had a great appreciation for life anyway. I think I'm just more relaxed about everything. You sit back and say, 'Nothing can be that bad.' It's a perspective thing."
Zelasko believes her father was her guardian angel because her emotional reaction to his death caused her to seek medical attention.
"I will always feel like it's the last gift he gave me," said Zelasko, who has not worked since the Orange Bowl Jan. 2. "It was literally Day 1 of my son's kindergarten class. My phone was ringing and I was thinking, 'Why is everybody bugging me?' You're in a different state because you're happy for your son but sad your baby is leaving you, and I get this voice mail message from my brother that my father had had a heart attack. There was a feeling in my gut, I just knew he was gone. I screamed so loud in my car that I scared my 2 1/2-year-old [daughter], so I knew I had to stop the car."
Zelasko's voice didn't recover. When she got home after covering the World Series, she began to find out why.
"If I hadn't had the drama with my dad and the heartbreak, I don't know that my voice would've gotten that bad that fast," she said.
Her gynecologist, Dr. Miin-hsiung Tzeng out of Valencia, Calif., discovered the lump and she had surgery Jan. 11. Following the operation, she had radiation treatment in February.
Zelasko had to wrestle with her Fox duties after she found out she had cancer.
"When I was diagnosed on the 18th, I was supposed to leave two days later for the BCS shoot," she said. "[It was a decision of] getting to my cancer before Christmas or going on this BCS shoot. It was really hard."
So she covered the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl and then came home for surgery. She said the hardest part was telling her mother, who lost her parents to cancer.
"But I told her I was OK," Zelasko said. "I said, 'I have the type of cancer you want to have, thyroid, and it was caught early.' I told Dr. Tzeng, 'You brought both of my kids into the world but you saved their momma's life.' "
She said if she feels badly about anything, it's that her husband - sports anchor Curt Sandoval - won't be running the Boston Marathon.
"My husband is an amateur triathlete and he was supposed to run the Boston Marathon this year but he couldn't because of my cancer diagnosis," she said. "I was not present for him. He had to beg off the Boston Marathon, which was a lifelong dream of his. Part of me wants to make phone calls to pull some strings but he just said to me, 'Maybe I'll qualify again some year.' But I'm crushed for him."
In addition to her professional goals, Zelasko said she wants everyone to know the importance of early diagnosis. If you don't know where your thyroid is, find out.
"That is my mission right now, men and women, touch your throat, touch your throat and swallow and see if you feel anything," she said. "Go to your Adam's apple, go right below it and swallow, you shouldn't feel a bump."
In Boston, the baseball season feels like it never ended, but Zelasko is excited about Fox's coverage and her part in it.
"I'm practically at 100 percent," she said. "Everything is in full steam."
Nancy Marrapese-Burrell can be reached at marrapese@globe.com.
