Originally posted Thursday, September 12, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

Pete Combs, who works as a reporter for both 95.5 WSB and ABC News, announced on Facebook early Thursday that he is suffering from a "rather large tumor in my left lung."

Combs said he thought “intense back and chest pain I was feeling was related to a recent neck surgery.”

But the news was really bad.

“Initial imaging shows the mass may be eating away at at least on of my ribs as well,” he wrote.

Combs said the doctors at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital have quickly created a cancer game plan for him.

“They’ve scheduled “a month of tests in a week,” he wrote. “They’re coordinated and responsive and we’re very positive about my prospects.”

Not that this has been easy emotionally, he wrote, for him or his wife Karen: "We've been overwhelmed just dealing with the gut-punch of all this and haven't been able to personally contact everyone we hold so dear. So we've resorted to this, hoping you won't be offended or upset."

Combs, who previously worked at WSB for nine years and has 40 years of media experience, returned in 2018. After his position ended at WSB in 2014, he landed a radio job in Seattle eight months later at KOMO.

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