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Cavuto returns the compliment, praising Ailes for his matter-of-fact acceptance of his MS diagnosis.

After breaking the news to Ailes, Cavuto, who manages a staff of about 30, told his own troops.

"I told my staff, 'Look, you may notice some things. There might be some days when I'm walking with a cane or in the hospital, sporadically. I don't know where it will go ... so I just take it one day at a time.'-"

Cavuto, who has lived for nearly a decade in Chester with his wife, Mary, and 17-year-old daughter, Tara, takes a weekly dose of the drug Avonex to slow the progression of the disease and uses a treadmill to "keep those legs going." He says he has good days, bad days, and very, very bad ones.

"It's a weird type of illness," he says. "When it's very, very bad, you can't walk or, at best, you really need a cane, but when it's OK, it's OK. You live with a degree of pain and discomfort."

Cavuto neither hides nor draws attention to his illness.

"I don't think I should be a platform or a cause," Cavuto says. "The way I can help people, hopefully, is to illustrate me trying to do my job and doing it the best way I know how, with a smile and a joke."

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