Arnold Schwarzenegger is providing a deeper look into his harrowing and nearly fatal heart operation in 2018, shedding light on the challenging recovery process and recalling the moment when doctors delivered the life-altering news.
In a video shared on YouTube for Arnold’s Pump Club, Schwarzenegger described waking up to a shocking revelation from his medical team. He recounted, “I mean, I woke up all of a sudden and the doctors [were] sitting in front of me saying, ‘I’m so sorry but unlike what we planned, which was non-invasive surgery — to just go through the heart and replace the valve — we made a mistake and poked through the heart wall, and therefore we had to kind of get internal bleeding and open [you] up very quickly…to save your life.'”
He continued, expressing his reaction to this devastating news:
“I mean, I woke up all of a sudden and the doctors [were] sitting in front of me saying, ‘I’m so sorry but unlike what we planned, which was non-invasive surgery — to just go through the heart and replace the valve — we made a mistake and poked through the heart wall, and therefore we had to kind of get internal bleeding and open [you] up very quickly…to save your life,'” he recalled.
“I said, ‘Well great. This is really great news.’ I mean, Jesus. Anyway, the bottom line is that you cannot roll the clock back. It’s a disaster. I was in the middle of a disaster,” he said in a video shared to YouTube for Arnold’s Pump Club.
At the time of the operation, Schwarzenegger had a previously scheduled procedure to replace a pulmonic valve at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles due to a congenital heart defect that had been addressed in 1997. An open-heart surgery team was on standby during the surgery in case the catheter procedure was not possible.
Schwarzenegger recalled that he was just weeks away from filming the sixth installment of “The Terminator” when this ordeal occurred. He described his immediate thoughts, saying, “So now it’s, ‘How do I get out of it?’ So you have to shift gears. You collect yourself, shift gears and say okay, ‘What I need to do now is, I got to get out of this hospital, number one.'”
Now 76 years old, Schwarzenegger explained that his initial post-surgery focus was on walking, and he enlisted the help of his friends to keep him motivated. “I called my buddies in and I said, ‘You guys have to fire me up. You have to count the amount of steps that I’m doing.’ And so this is what they did every day, everyone came in there to the hospital. They say, ‘Okay, Arnold. Get up now. Let’s go walk the hallway.'”
Despite feeling vulnerable and unsteady, Schwarzenegger emphasized the importance of exercise during his recovery, as advised by his doctors. He revealed, “I knew I was not doing well, I looked like an idiot, you know wobbling around through the hallway. But you know the bottom line was I was getting going because the doctor said, ‘You have to exercise your lungs because if you get pneumonia you can die.'”
Schwarzenegger’s determination to regain his health stemmed from his impending return to film “Terminator 6” just three months after the surgery. He knew he had to be in shape for the physically demanding role, and he attributed his success to his positive attitude and the unwavering support of his friends.
“So I wanted to get really going with exercise, get out of the hospital as quick as possible, and then get going with the training again. Because…three months later, I started with ‘Terminator 6.’ So I had to be in shape. I had to be able to move around and run around, lift things up, do the fight scenes,” he shared.
“We did it, because I had a positive attitude. I knew exactly how I’m going to get there, I had the support system. Because none of this we can do by ourselves. I had a whole support system and it was fantastic, the way all the guys pumped me up and got me going,” he remembered.
