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Monday, at nine o’clock in the morning, I will return to Middle Georgia radio for the first time in a decade.
Back in December 2006, doctors found spots in my wife’s lungs and a blood clot in a major vein. They biopsied her a week before Christmas. That morning, my world had already started to crumble. My business partners at the website I was running called to tell me we were out of cash. I needed to find a new job. That afternoon, doctors told me my wife had six months to live. They said my wife had an extremely aggressive form of cancer in its late stage and time was running out.
I had to look my wife in her eyes as she woke up from surgery to tell her. Telling anyone they are dying is traumatic. Telling your spouse is devastating. Telling your spouse, then having to leave to get your child from day care before it closed is just a whole different level. I got my child, got home, then sank into the grass and mud holding my 1-year-old, crying in the rain.
Thankfully, my wife was not dying. After a re-examination of the biopsy, they determined my wife’s problem was highly unusual and not cancer. The Mayo Clinic confirmed it was benign. A few days later, my website was bought by a company in Washington and I kept my job.
A few years later, we made the decision for my wife to stay home with our kids. She had some health issues related to her lungs and she really wanted to stay home. We weren’t sure what I would do to make ends meet, but we prayed hard. A few days later, CNN offered me a job. Had we not decided my wife should stay home, I could not have made the CNN job work given the travel. God had plans.
While at CNN, WMAC here in Macon parted ways with their morning radio host who had come in after Kenny Burgamy and Charles Richardson left. They needed a fill in and asked me to do it. I got paid in an expired Outback Steakhouse gift certificate. But while there, Herman Cain decided to run for the presidency and WSB in Atlanta needed a replacement. They thought I was the actual radio show host and offered me Cain’s job. I’ve been there ever since as the voice of evening drive time in Atlanta.
Had that not happened, I would have never had the idea to do a statewide radio show. But doing drive time made me want to stretch my legs. After eight years in evening drive in Atlanta, I started doing my own morning show this August. The show focuses on Georgia news. I will be back on AM 940 starting tomorrow. Had this weird flow in life not all happened as it happened, I would not be doing this now.
Three years ago, the Mayo Clinic called my wife. They suspected she might have lung cancer. She does. Had she not been misdiagnosed in 2006, they would not have found it until it had progressed too far. That traumatic moment 13 years ago at Christmas wound up being a blessing. God has plans. We do not know them, but we are part of them and in just over a week, we will celebrate a key aspect of his overall plan. It is involves a baby and a manger and you and me.
Erick Erickson hosts “The Erick Erickson Show,“ which is broadcast across Georgia.