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Amy Grant Opens Up About Recovery From Bike Accident That Left Her With Traumatic Brain Injury
Grammy Award winning musician Amy Grant suffered a traumatic brain injury as the result of a bicycle accident last summer, and her road to recovery was long and complicated.
The accident, which left her unconscious for 10 minutes and left her with memory loss, happened near her home in Nashville, Tennessee last July.
The singer sat down for an interview with TODAY's Craig Melvin which aired on March 1.
She told Melvin:
"I wrote this long book. It was a spiral notebook. And I was just writing to remember, writing—making sure I could remember everybody’s name in my family, which I couldn’t, at first."
She even forgot the lyrics to some of her songs and had to re-learn them from scratch—even hits like "Tennessee Christmas" and "Baby, Baby."
She described how her first live show after the accident went.
"So the first night of the Christmas tour, which is the first time back on tour, teleprompter, and I was on heels. I was, like, holding onto the piano."
She was incredibly nervous, but her colleagues had her back.
"Before the show I was like, ‘I’m so scared. I’m so scared.’ And I work with so many great singers, and they’re like, ‘We got you, we got you.'"
Grant said her medical team told her it could take up to 18 months for her to recover from the cognitive effects of her brain injury.
The bike accident wasn't even the only medical complication Grant had to deal with in recent years. She had heart surgery in 2020 and just had a cyst removed from her throat earlier this year.
She said a fellow vocalist actually helped her to realize something was wrong, by noticing a change in her voice which led to her getting the cyst removed.
"(I was) working with a vocalist and she said, 'What is happening in your throat? Lean your head back'."
"And I said, 'I know. It’s like I’ve got an Adam’s apple that keeps getting bigger.' Unbeknownst to me, I’d had a thyroglossal duct cyst."
Even after all of that, Grant said she feels great and is ready to get on with her life.
"I feel fantastic. I mean, really from 2020 on, I feel like I had to, if I were a car, I’ve made a lotta trips to the shop. And I feel like I’m emerging. I went, 'Oh man, I feel like a classic now.' And actually sort of re-revved up in a really beautiful way."
Grant also said her singing practice and leaning into her faith really helped her handle all of the scary things that happened.
"It’s helped me not be afraid. And just to go, however this turns out, I believe I’m held by love, just like I believe that about you, and everybody I meet"
You can view Grant's full interview with TODAY's Craig Melvin below:
Grant truly has seized the day since her accident.
According to Billboard, she is back in the studio preparing to release her first new solo album in over a decade—with a new single, "Trees We'll Never See" due to be released on March 24th.
In addition to the new recordings, Grant has scheduled a 70-date tour, and she intends to play some of the new songs for audiences before the album's release.
Grant shared her thoughts on the whole experience:
"To me it’s just been a great reminder that life is dynamic, people are dynamic. Nobody’s all good, nobody’s all bad. A circumstance is not all bad or all good. Even in the worst, awful, worst trauma, beauty and goodness are still present."
Amy Grant kicks off her new tour tonight, March 2, with a show at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California.
The tour is scheduled to run until October 26, with the last currently scheduled show taking place at Plymouth Memorial Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts.