Contemporary Christian artist Amy Grant underwent open heart surgery on Wednesday, according to a statement from her team on social media. The surgery was to repair a heart condition, known as PAPVR (partial anomalous pulmonary venous return), the singer has had since birth.
https://www.facebook.com/amygrant/posts/10158351879123794
A few hours later, an update was posted to Grant’s pages stating that the surgery was a success as well as a request for prayers during her recovery.
“Thank you for so many prayers today. Amy is out of surgery and the doctor said it could not have gone better. We would ask for continued prayers over the days, weeks and months to come as she makes a full recovery,” the statement read.
In February, Grant, who is married to country superstar Vince Gill, revealed that her doctors discovered the condition during a routine checkup.
“Since February is heart health awareness month, I want to send a shout out to my doctor, John Bright Cage. He suggested I have a check up because of my Dad’s heart history,” Amy wrote. “…the battery of tests he put me through show that I have had a heart condition since birth.”
59-year-old Grant then shared that she had no symptoms of the heart disorder, but that she was going to forgo her usual summer plans of “concerts and camping trips” to have it fixed.
Amy married Vince Gill in 2000, seven years after their first meeting when they recorded a duet called “House of Love”, the title track of Grant’s 1994 record. Both said that it was love at first sight.
“I think that a part of me loved him instantly,” Grant says. “I felt like I knew him instantly. I was so moved by him as a human being that I went up behind him and just hugged him as hard as I could while he was singing. I just said, ‘I just needed to hug you all night.'”
Gill felt the same and wrote his ballad “Whenever You Come Around” after their meeting. “This is a song that was inspired by a smile that I saw for the first time on the face of a woman that I’d never met. That was Amy Grant back in 1993. I was so inspired, moved by the sight of that smile, that I came home and wrote this song,” he adds. “I had no idea that all these years later we’d wind up together, have kids. … Life’s funny.”
Our thoughts and prayers are with Amy Grant as she recovers from heart surgery.