SANTA MONICA – Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of the biggest action stars of the past century, revealed he underwent surgery to have a pacemaker implanted last week, and was back at public engagements just days later.
“Last Monday, I had surgery to become a little bit more of a machine: I got a pacemaker,” the “Terminator” star, 76, said during an episode of his “Arnold’s Pump Club” podcast.
“First of all, I want you to know I’m doing great! I had my surgery on Monday, and by Friday, I was already at a big environmental event with my friend and fellow fitness crusader Jane Fonda,” the former California governor said. “Nobody would ever have thought I started the week with a surgery.”
Schwarzenegger, who has a genetic heart condition, has had multiple heart surgeries in the past. In 1997, he underwent surgeries to replace his pulmonic and aortic valves, which was expected to last between 12 and 15 years. He ultimately underwent additional surgeries to have them replaced in 2018 and 2020.
“I want to thank my whole team at the Cleveland Clinic. All of the doctors and nurses took amazing care of me and made the surgery as painless as possible,” he said.
He noted that he has been “very diligent about staying in touch with my doctors and listening to them,” because his mother died in 1998 after she didn’t get a necessary valve replacement surgery.
“I stayed in touch with my medical team and visited in person at least once a year to get a full check-up and see how my heart was doing,” he said. “That’s life with a genetic heart issue. But you won’t hear me complaining.”
Scar tissue from his last surgery caused him to develop an irregular heartbeat, which he was told to monitor closely.
“I went in for my normal checkup at the beginning of March on my way to the Arnold Sports Festival, and they did a full series of tests,” he said. The results indicated he needed to get a pacemaker as soon as possible, especially if he wanted to recover ahead of the start of filming on “FUBAR” Season 2 in just six weeks.
“I told them I’d stop in Cleveland on my way home from the U.K., and we’d do it. Monday, I went under and got my new machine part installed,” he said. “I can’t do my serious training in the gym for a while, but I will be 100% ready for ‘FUBAR’ next month.”
He said that sharing his personal health struggles goes “against so much of my upbringing in Austria,” but that so many fans have told him learning about his heart surgeries helped them with their own health struggles.
“I could have kept it a secret. But I know that we have more than 750,000 subscribers now — the village is a city now — and a lot of you are probably dealing with your own health challenges,” he said. “I want you to know you aren’t alone. And if you’re putting something off out of fear, I hope I inspire you to listen to your doctors and take care of yourself.”
Some content courtesy of TMX and www.fansofarnold.com.
