Arnold Schwarzenegger dishes the details.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has always been a pretty inspirational figure in entertainment, politics, and bodybuilding. The success he’s experienced in his career is truly inspiring.
But despite what his iconic role in The Terminator would have you believe, Arnold Schwarzenegger is still human. The world was reminded of that fact when Arnold underwent heart surgery.
It was shocking news to say the least. But Arnold was able to recover and informed his fans that the procedure was routine. Despite that fact, it appears the surgery was a bit more serious than we first thought.
During a recent commencement speech, Arnold spoke plan about his surgery and how suffering tough times is no reason to give up.
“When I woke up from the surgery, I woke up 16 hours later, instead of 4 hours. There was a tube sticking out of my mouth, and then the doctor moved forward and ripped the tube out of my mouth. I was coughing violently, and he says ‘Just keep coughing and then let us tell you what happened.’
They told me that they had to do an emergency surgery, that something went wrong during this kind of noninvasive procedure, then it became very invasive. They said they broke through the heart wall, and there was internal bleeding and I could have died if they didn’t open up my sternum and do open heart surgery. So imagine: the day before I was in the hospital, I was training really hard for Terminator 6, and now all of sudden they’re telling me that they saved my life.
“Then he goes on and says ‘You’re not out of the woods yet. There’s a lot of danger, there’s still patients in our heart unit here that, after surgery, they pass away and die, not because of the heart surgery, but because of the lungs. They get pneumonia. So we are really worried about you getting pneumonia.’”
Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to further explains his reasoning behind sharing this ordeal.
“Now the reason I’m telling you this is because, no matter how successful you are, life will throw obstacles in your path. Like with my heart surgery, or like with your graduation now. But if you have a very clear vision of exactly what you want to do and who you want to be, you can find a way around all of these obstacles.”
To see the full speech take a look at the video below.
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Managing Editor at Generation Iron, Jonathan Salmon is a writer, martial arts instructor, and geek culture enthusiast. Check out his YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Sound Cloud for in-depth MMA analysis.
