Radio host Ali Clarke announces she’ll be returning to work after undergoing surgery following shock cancer diagnosis

Radio star Ali Clarke has announced she is returning to work, less than a month after revealing live on air that she had received a heartbreaking breast cancer diagnosis.

The Adelaide radio presenter, who co-presents Max & Ali in the Morning with Max Burford, underwent a mastectomy two weeks ago.

During Tuesday’s show, Ali made a surprise comeback to discuss her recovery on air, before announcing that she’ll be returning to work Wednesday morning.

“Well, what do you think, now that you’re going completely crazy? Do you feel like getting back to work?” Max asked.

“I’ll be back on the air tomorrow morning at 6am,” Ali revealed, much to Max’s delight.

Hayley Pearson, who replaced Ali, was also very happy with the news.

“That’s a good thing, because I’m busy,” Hayley joked.

Ali admitted that she was happy to go back to work as she had nothing to do in her spare time.

“I’m so sick of this,” Ali protested. “The Olympics are over, I’ve watched the entire Viking series on Netflix, and I haven’t even worked a quarter of a leopard into my embroidery.”

“The Olympics were epic for me. I ended up putting my hand up to do our Olympic WhatsApp quiz,” she added.

‘We’ve been on a WhatsApp quiz group since the Tokyo quiz, so I took it upon myself to come up with some of the most obscure questions I could think of, as I was the only one who watched it all live.’

In addition to perfecting her trivia skills, Ali added that one of the biggest lessons she learned during her ordeal was that recovery is unique for everyone.

“I’ll be back on the radio tomorrow morning at 6am,” Ali revealed, much to the delight of co-host Max Burford

“It’s funny, I was talking to a friend of mine who had a mastectomy at the end of last year – she’s younger than me, she’s a former Olympian, she’s an amazing person and I called her and I said, ‘What can I expect? How’s the recovery?’ and she just said, ‘I climbed Mount Lofty in two weeks,'” Ali said, referring to the highest point in South Australia’s Southern Mount Lofty Ranges.

Ali, who is married to Adelaide’s AFL Women’s League head coach Matthew Clarke, said the admission was initially daunting.

“I looked at Matt and said, ‘First of all, absolutely not and second of all, I can’t do that anymore,’” she laughed.

“That’s the one thing I’ve been through in all of this. Whatever you’re going through, whether it’s chronic pain, surgery, recovering from a baby, becoming a father for the first time, we just have to let go and understand that it’s different for everyone,” she added.

Ali added that one of the biggest lessons she learned during her ordeal was how every person’s journey is unique

Ali announced her diagnosis on the radio late last month, telling listeners she would be taking a break from the show to seek treatment.

I thought [the cancer] “It was very small and manageable. But it did find a lot of small cancers. And that means I’m going to have a pretty big surgery later this week, and I’m going to have to take some time off to recover, as you can imagine,” she told listeners.

After her surgery, Ali called into the show to give an update on her recovery, admitting that she was doing well.

Ali said the surgery took several hours and she will have to wait for the results to determine if further treatment is needed.

Hayley then asked, “Have you had a look at it yet? Or was it already wrapped?”

“We were all wrapped up, but… it wasn’t as confronting as I thought,” Ali replied.

“My biggest relief was when the children came in and I asked them if they wanted to take a look. They all said yes and they weren’t shocked.”

Ali revealed her diagnosis on the radio late last month, telling listeners she would be taking a break from the show to undergo treatment. Ali is pictured with her husband Matthew Clarke