Local radio icon Bear O’Brian is returning to the airwaves Monday, November 17 after back-to-back health battles. It all started in the summer of 2024 when his doctor discovered a lump under his arm was cancerous. “Well, praise God for the cancer because he had no idea my heart was in the shape it was in,” O’Brian said.
He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After treating the cancer first his heart doctor told him he needed a quadruple bypass surgery and then removed an aneurysm. O’Brian had complications and was rushed by ambulance to Emory hospital where doctors put a stent in his heart. He returned home about nine weeks ago to begin recovery. O’Brian has been off the air for about three and a half months. He is cancer free today but still healing from his heart surgery.
Bear O’Brian has been doing radio for 47 years and spent four decades of that in the Columbus market. He’s been with Kissin’ 99.3 for the last 16 years.
