850 KOA midday host Mandy Connell will be out of work for a month after recovering from surgery to repair her vocal cords Thursday.
Connell revealed her absence on Wednesday.
“Tomorrow morning, I will be having surgery on my vocal cords, and if you’ve never been to the blog before, and you want to see my actual vocal cords today’s the day because I have a photograph of my vocal cords on the blog today so you can clearly see what it is that my crack surgeon is going to be removing tomorrow,” Connell shared.
She then welcomed her surgeon, Dr. David Opperman, to the program to explain what exactly she’ll be undergoing. Connell also revealed that Dr. Opperman had previously repaired a similar injury to her KOA colleague Ross Kaminsky.
“We have to address the fact that you have sort of a little bump on your vocal cord that’s interfering with the way it vibrates,” Dr. Opperman revealed. “And that’s why you don’t sound like you used to a few years ago. It’s basically interfering with the sound production in your throat. So we’re going to put you to sleep very comfortably, use a little device that lets me look directly at your vocal cords, and then under a very high-powered magnification, we’re going to remove that spot.
“We actually have to lift up some of the tissue so that we can remove it without injuring the vibration surface. And that will preserve your voice and you’ll come back talking like you did five years ago.”
The doctor went on to tell Connell that her condition was likely caused by talking on-air for more than 20 hours per week in “different pitch ranges and intonations”.
