Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened up about a tough period when he underwent unplanned open heart surgery, emphasizing the urgency of his recovery in a recent video on his YouTube channel, Arnold’s Pump Club.
In early 2018, at 76 years old, the actor and bodybuilder faced a harrowing experience when he was initially scheduled for non-invasive heart surgery.
“I remember when I had my open heart surgery, my third one… I was really freaking out, and I woke up all of the sudden and the doctor was standing in front of me, and saying ‘I’m so sorry, but unlike what we planned, a non-invasive surgery… we made a mistake and poked through the heart wall, and there was internal bleeding, and we had to open you up to save your life.’” Schwarzenegger recalled.
“The bottom line is, you cannot roll the clock back,” he continued. “I was in the middle of a disaster… so now it’s about, ‘how do I get out of it?’ You have to shift gears.”
Getting healthy enough to get discharged from the hospital was the first step in his recovery, Schwarzenegger said.
“[That meant] getting out of bed and start walking. First 10 steps, then longer and longer,” he explained, adding that when he needed extra motivation, “I called my buddies in and said, ‘You guys have to fire me up. You have to count the number of steps that I’m doing.’”
“Because three months later, I started with Terminator 6,” he said, referring to Terminator: Dark Fate, which was set to start shooting after multiple delays. “So I had to be in shape, I had to be able to move around, run around, lift things up, do the fight scene, all these things.”
Schwarzenegger revealed behind-the scenes footage of himself both in the hospital and practising on exercise equipment once he was discharged as he pondered on his healing process.
“And I did it! Because I had a positive attitude and knew exactly how I was going to get there,” he explained. “[And] I had the support system, because none of this we can do by ourselves… When I started shooting Terminator 6, I was all back together again.”