Radio star Ali Clarke has revealed she will be returning to work less than one month after announcing a heartbreaking breast cancer diagnosis live on air.
The Adelaide radio presenter, who co-hosts Max & Ali in the Morning with Max Burford, underwent a mastectomy two weeks ago.
During Tuesday's show, Ali made a surprise return to discuss her recovery on air before revealing that she'll be back at work on Wednesday morning.
'Well what do you reckon now that you are starting to go stir crazy, are you feeling you want to come back to work?' Max asked.
'Tomorrow morning at 6am I will be back on the air,' Ali revealed, much to the delight of Max.
Hayley Pearson, who had been filling in for Ali, was also quite chuffed with the news.
'Thank God, because I'm busy,' Hayley joked.
Ali admitted that she was excited to return to work as she was running out of things to do in her downtime.
Adelaide radio host Ali Clarke has revealed that she will be returning to work less than a month after announcing a heartbreaking breast cancer diagnosis live on air
'I'm so sick of it,' Ali protested. 'The Olympics are over, I've exhausted Netflix's Viking series, but I haven't even got through a quarter of a leopard in my cross stitch.
'The Olympics was epic for me. I ended up putting my hand up to run our Olympic WhatsApp quiz, she added.
'We've been in a WhatsApp trivia quiz group since the Tokyo ones, so I took it upon myself to write some of the most obscure questions I could because I've been the only person watching it all live.'
Aside from perfecting her trivia skills, Ali added that one of the biggest lessons she learned throughout her ordeal was how each person's recovery was quite unique.
'Tomorrow morning at 6am I will be back on the air,' Ali revealed, much to the delight of co-host Max Burford
'It's funny, I spoke to a girlfriend of mine who had a mastectomy late last year - she's younger than me, she's a former Olympian, she's an amazing human being and I rang her and I said: "what am I up for? What's the recovery like?" and she just said I walked up Mount Lofty after two weeks",' Ali said referring to the highest point in South Australia's Sothern Mount Lofty Ranges.
Ali, who is married to the head coach of Adelaide in the AFL Women's league Matthew Clarke, added that this admission was, at first, daunting.
'I looked at Matt and said: 'Number one, no way and number two, I can't do that now,' she laughed.
'That is the one thing that I've worked through in all of this - no matter what you're going through - if it's chronic pain, surgery, recovering from a baby, becoming a dad for the first time, we've really just got to lay off and understand that its really individual for every single person,' she added.
Ali added that one of the biggest lessons she had learned throughout her ordeal was how each person's journey was quite unique
Ali revealed her diagnosis on air late last month, telling listeners that she would take a break from the show to undergo treatment.
'I thought [the cancer] was very small and manageable. But found quite a lot of small little cancers. And so that means that I'll be going in for some pretty big surgery later this week, and I'll have to take some time off to recover as you can imagine,' she told listeners.
Following her surgery, Ali called in to the show to give an update on her recovery admitting she was doing well.
Ali said the surgery took several hours and she will need to wait for results to see whether any more treatment is needed.
Hayley then asked: 'Have you been able to have a look at it yet? Or was it all wrapped up?'
'We're all wrapped up but … it wasn't as confronting as I think I had it in my mind,' Ali responded.
'My biggest relief was when the kids came in and I asked them if they wanted to have a look and they all said yes, and they didn't recoil.'
Ali revealed her diagnosis on air late last month, telling listeners that she would take a break from the show to undergo treatment. Ali is pictured with husband Matthew Clarke
