Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped in Cleveland this week for his latest heart surgery. The former California governor had a new aortic valve put in to join the new pulmonary valve he had placed in during his last surgery. Schwarzenegger, 73, said the surgery was a success and shared pictures of himself stopping at landmarks throughout Cleveland.
“Thanks to the team at the Cleveland Clinic, I have a new aortic valve to go along with my new pulmonary valve from my last surgery,” Schwarzenegger wrote on Instagram Friday afternoon. “I feel fantastic and have already been walking the streets of Cleveland enjoying your amazing statues. Thank you to every doc and nurse on my team!” The post received thousands of comments from Schwarzenegger’s fans and famous friends, including Sylvester Stallone. “Looking stronger than ever!!!” Stallone wrote.
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Schwarzenegger first underwent heart surgery in 1997 and needed emergency open-heart surgery in March 2018. “Gov. Schwarzenegger underwent a planned procedure at Cedars-Sinai [Medical Center] to replace a pulmonic valve that was originally replaced due to a congenital heart defect in 1997,” Schwarzenegger’s spokesman Daniel Ketchell explained at the time of the emergency surgery. “That 1997 replacement valve was never meant to be permanent, and has outlived its life expectancy, so he chose to replace it yesterday through a less-invasive catheter valve replacement.” Ketchell said an open-heart surgery team was prepared to step in “in case the catheter procedure was unable to be performed.” The Terminator star spent a few days in the hospital before he was released in early April 2018.
Schwarzenegger has been making headlines in the lead-up to the presidential election by criticizing his own party. During a CNN interview earlier this month, Schwarzenegger criticized the California Republican Party for putting unauthorized ballot boxes in three counties. State officials ordered the counties to remove the boxes, but Republicans defended them. They claim it was no different than Democrats collecting ballots door-to-door.
“It’s a stupid thing that they’re doing right now with those ballot boxes,” Schwarzenegger said, reports Politico. “I think it’s just Mickey Mouse stuff that, you know, has serious kind of effects. And I think that what they should do, really, is offer people hope and make everyone participate and make everyone be able to vote and those kind of things rather than make those fake ballot boxes.”
