Arnold Schwarzenegger shares what he learned after grueling recovery from the open-heart surgery that nearly killed him four years ago.
While Schwarzenegger has been a lifelong fitness fan, the 76-year-old bodybuilder-turned-actor has also had to deal with health issues over the years, including a botched procedure in 2019 that was performed prior to filming “Terminator: Dark Fate”.
in YouTube video Entitled “Starting From Scratch: Back From Heart Surgery,” the former California governor recalls how he woke up “panicked” after something went wrong with what was supposed to be a “non-surgical” aortic valve replacement — his third open-heart surgery.
Schwarzenegger said: “I woke up and suddenly the doctors were in front of me saying, ‘I’m so sorry, but it was the opposite of what we had planned.'” “[They said] We made a mistake and broke through the wall of the heart and had to open me up very quickly and save me [my] life. I was really panicking.”
The operation gone wrong was a major setback for the action star who had to undergo a difficult physical recovery instead of training for “Terminator 6”.
“The bottom line is, you can’t turn back the clock,” he added. It was a disaster. I was in the middle of a disaster. Now how do I get out of it? You have to shift gears. You gather your strength, you move, you say, well, what I have to do now is get out of this hospital.
Schwarzenegger shared footage from his recovery, including a clip where he slowly but surely walks down a hospital hall with his friends.
“I called my friends and said, ‘You have to get me out of the fire.’ He said, ‘You have to count the number of steps I take.’” “Your lungs because if you get pneumonia you can die.”
Eventually, Schwarzenegger managed to get back in shape enough to get back in the gym and start preparing for the latest “Terminator” movie.
“I had to be in good shape, I had to move, run, lift things, do fight scenes,” he explained. “We did it because I had a positive attitude, I knew exactly how to get there, I had a support system – because we can’t do any of this ourselves – and when I started shooting ‘Terminator 6’ I was totally comfortable.” We’ll get back together again.”
Schwarzenegger’s first experience with serious heart surgery was a pulmonary valve replacement in 1997. He had the operation again in 2018.
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