{"id":488,"date":"2008-02-14T16:18:48","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T16:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after.php"},"modified":"2008-02-14T16:18:48","modified_gmt":"2008-02-14T16:18:48","slug":"billy-graham-recovering-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after","title":{"rendered":"Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press &#8211; February 14, 2008 <\/strong><br \/>\nASHEVILLE, N.C. &#8211; Evangelist Billy Graham was recovering Thursday from a surgery to update a shunt that controls excess fluid in his brain, a family spokesman said.<br \/>\nThe 89-year-old Southern Baptist minister was expected to spend some of the day walking the halls of Asheville&#8217;s Mission Hospital and to return to his usual diet later Thursday, said Graham spokesman Larry Ross.<br \/>\n&#8220;He rested well overnight and is in high spirits,&#8221; Ross said.<br \/>\nGraham underwent the elective surgery Wednesday to replace a shunt first installed in 2000. The shunt drains fluid from his brain through a small tube that runs down his head and neck and into the abdominal cavity, where the fluid is absorbed by his body.<br \/>\nDoctors determined the old shunt was not adequately controlling the brain fluid. A buildup of fluid, known as hydrocephalus, can cause symptoms similar to Parkinson&#8217;s disease.<br \/>\nGraham has also suffered from prostate cancer and macular degeneration. He was hospitalized last year for nearly two weeks after experiencing intestinal bleeding.<br \/>\nThose conditions, combined with his age, have left Graham mostly confined to his mountainside home in Montreat for the past several years.<br \/>\nThe charismatic minister once led a worldwide crusade-based ministry that packed stadiums with believers and put him on the pulpit in front of millions. He also gained the confidence of every U.S. president since Harry Truman.<br \/>\nGraham&#8217;s wife, Ruth Bell Graham, died in June following a lengthy illness.<br \/>\n<strong>On the Net:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Xct97FynWk\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/billygraham.org\/\">Home<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Home&#8221; &#8212; Billy Graham Evangelistic Association\" src=\"https:\/\/billygraham.org\/embed\/#?secret=Xct97FynWk\" data-secret=\"Xct97FynWk\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nCopyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press &#8211; February 14, 2008 ASHEVILLE, N.C. &#8211; Evangelist Billy Graham was recovering Thursday from a surgery to update a shunt that controls excess fluid in his brain, a family spokesman said. The 89-year-old Southern Baptist minister was expected to spend some of the day walking the halls of Asheville&#8217;s Mission Hospital and to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press &#8211; February 14, 2008 ASHEVILLE, N.C. &#8211; Evangelist Billy Graham was recovering Thursday from a surgery to update a shunt that controls excess fluid in his brain, a family spokesman said. The 89-year-old Southern Baptist minister was expected to spend some of the day walking the halls of Asheville&#8217;s Mission Hospital and to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-14T16:18:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery","og_description":"Associated Press &#8211; February 14, 2008 ASHEVILLE, N.C. &#8211; Evangelist Billy Graham was recovering Thursday from a surgery to update a shunt that controls excess fluid in his brain, a family spokesman said. The 89-year-old Southern Baptist minister was expected to spend some of the day walking the halls of Asheville&#8217;s Mission Hospital and to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-02-14T16:18:48+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after","name":"Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-02-14T16:18:48+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-14T16:18:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/billy-graham-recovering-after#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}