850 KOA midday host Mandy Connell returned to the airwaves Friday. She had missed the previous month after undergoing vocal cord surgery in early June.
“That month flew by for me to be honest, as I managed to get a lot of stuff done after the first two weeks of not being allowed to do much,” Connell wrote in a blog on the station’s website. “You’ll hopefully not notice much of a difference with my voice, but it is not as strong as it will eventually be just yet. I will be outsourcing the ‘Of the Day’ intro for some time.”
Connell added that she is not completely back to normal, so will feature a cohort during her usual solo 12:00-3:00 PM timeslot.
“I will also have a co-host for the first week as I’m still not up to 100% and today you get to hear my husband Chuck do the show. It should be fun, but there will be a couple of small changes for the next few weeks and I appreciate your patience as I sort out how to do the show and not re-injure my voice!”
The KOA host had shared in June that Dr. David Opperman would perform her surgery. He claimed that her condition — a bump on her vocal cored — was likely caused by talking on-air for more than 20 hours per week in “different pitch ranges and intonations”. Opperman had previously operated in a similar fashion on Connell’s KOA colleague Ross Kaminsky.
