Posted by chicagomedia.org on September 09, 2008 at 20:37:43:
In Reply to: Allison Payne checking into Mayo Clinic posted by chicagomedia.org on September 09, 2008 at 20:34:27:
Channel 9's Payne heads to Mayo Clinic
Long-time WGN-Ch. 9 anchor Allison Payne said Tuesday she is headed to Minnesota's famed Mayo Clinic on Wednesday for a battery of tests to determine the best way to battle the residual effects of a series of mini-strokes that kept her off the air for three months earlier this year.
So long as the visit is uneventful, Payne expects to return home in time for Monday's scheduled debut of Channel 9's 5:30 p.m. newscast, which she is to co-anchor with her 9 p.m. partner, Mark Suppelsa.
"That's the plan unless they find something," Payne said. "They're going to check my brain, my blood and my heart."
WGN News Director Greg Caputo said the station has a backup plan should Payne be unavailable. But, as the assumption is the broadcast will go as planned, he did not want to discuss it.
"The most important thing for us here, who know Allison and love her and have worked with her for years, is that she get better," Caputo said. "Our concern is for her, and if she's able to do the show on Monday after she gets back from Minnesota, that's great. She anticipates that she will be, but if for some reason she is unable to because of whatever may come from being up there, we'll handle that as we go along, just as we've always been handling it."
Payne, who has co-anchored WGN's marquee 9 p.m. newscast for 15 years, apologized to viewers in a Chicago Tribune interview last month for an unsteady on-air appearance, blaming it on overwork compounding the lingering effects of the mini-strokes that sidelined her from January to April.
She noted Tuesday that she also hadn't been taking her prescribed blood thinner "and that's a major no-no."
(ROSENTHAL/trib)