A man after my own heart. Arnold Schwarzenegger undergoes heart surgery. As you may or may not know, I had open heart surgery back in September of 2017. As Arnold did, I had mine done at the Cleveland Clinic. You may or may not know, the Cleveland Clinic is the number one hospital in the country when it comes to matters of the heart.
They did a less-invasive catheter valve replacement. Meaning he wasn’t cut open. Schwarzenegger’s last heart surgery was in 2018. He had to replace a pulmonic valve that was originally replaced in 1997 due to a congenital heart defect. The former governor of California has spoken about how heart problems run in his family.
In a 2016 interview on In Depth With Graham Bensinger, Schwarzenegger said his late mother’s heart had two valves that “didn’t really work well.” His grandmother, who died at the age of 67, also had a valve problem. Schwarzenegger recalled how he had life-threatening surgery less than 24 hours after his first heart procedure “failed.”
The surgical team that did my surgery consisted of 11 people. A less-invasive catheter valve replacement was out of the question for me since I also needed an aneurysm repaired.I was up walking the same day. But unlike Arnold’s picture, I had a bunch more monitors hooked up to me. I spent five days in ICU. Went home the fifth day, and I was out walking the streets of my neighborhood.
