Amy Grant recalls facing serious health issues, says it ‘changed the way I look at life’

WASHINGTON: American singer-songwriter and musician Amy Grant recalled facing two serious health scares in the past four years, reported People.

The Grammy-winning singer, who underwent open heart surgery in 2020 and then sustained a brain injury in a bike crash in 2022, shared that the incidents “changed the way I look at life”.

Grant shared that before she learnt she had troubles with her own heart, “I always saw myself living well into my nineties. My great-grandmother lived to be 94. She was sharp in the mind,” she says. “To realize something can happen that you never see coming, and it could be over…everything became more precious”.

The singer discovered her cardiac condition after the doctor who was treating her husband, musician Vince Gill (67), who had been having shortness of breath, advised she get tested as well, “After giving Vince the ‘great’ news, ‘You’re just fat and out of shape’ — and Vince said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know!’, the doctor looked at me and said, ‘I want to see you’,” she said.

“Testing revealed that she had a rare heart defect known as PAPVR (partial anomalous pulmonary venous return) in which some of the blood vessels of the lungs attach to the wrong place in the heart. The condition means the heart has to work harder and can cause breathing trouble, lung infections, swelling of the heart chambers or other serious heart issues”, according to People.

Up to that point, Grant knew that her heart rate would be high if she exercised and thought she just needed to build stamina. “I just learned to push through because that’s what women do,” she shared. “I was one of those women who’s like, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m the Energizer Bunny,’ and then I just would’ve died. And I’m not ready to die”.

After her open heart surgery in June 2020, Grant decided to keep herself fit and started a regular practice of swimming, “I was probably in the best shape I had been in in a long time, maybe 20 years”, she said.

And then, in July 2022, she hit a pothole while riding her bike in Nashville and although she was wearing a helmet, she sustained a brain injury that left her with lingering memory issues for months. “I would just say, ‘What if I’m never all the way back?’ Because my processing was so slow. I could be in the room with people, but I didn’t have a comeback,” she said.

However, with time Grant’s memory has improved, and she shared, “now I feel fully in control of all my capacity.” She adds, “I write everything on a calendar. But whatever memory issues I have, I think are age appropriate. I’m about to be 64. So I’m just going, ‘I’m right on time.'”

After facing health issues her perspective towards life has changed. “I’m finding a different balance between music and family and just trying to be a lot more involved, as my adult children will allow it,” she shared.

Grant has three children from her first marriage to musician Gary Chapman, along with a daughter, Corrina Grant Gill (23), whom she shares with Gill. Gill also has a daughter Jennifer Gill, from his first marriage, reported People. (ANI)