Elizabeth Taylor asks for prayers via Twitter as she prepares to undergo heart surgery

Dame Elizabeth Taylor, the beloved movie icon and AIDS activist, let her many fans know earlier today via Twitter that she is heading to the hospital. I’ll let her tell you why:

“Dear Friends, I would like to let you know before it gets in the papers that I am going into the hospital to have a procedure on my heart. It’s very new and involves repairing my leaky valve using a clip device, without open heart surgery, so that my heart will function better. Any prayers you happen to have lying around I would dearly appreciate. I’ll let you know when it’s all over. Love you, Elizabeth.”

Miss Taylor, now 77, has survived a brain tumor, multiple hip surgeries, was pronounced dead from pnemonia back in the early 60s and has had back problems so severe that she has in recent years gotten around on a wheelchair. But she has gotten around and most recently appeared at the annual Macys Passport event which raises money for AIDS research and care. It’s a cause that she took the lead on back in the mid-80s when no one else would and a cause she has remained devoted to.

I’d like to wish this two-time Oscar winner, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Dame of the British Empire a speedy recovery!