Arnold Schwarzenegger shares photo days after pacemaker surgery

By Emily Blumenthal, CNN

(CNN) — Arnold Schwarzenegger has shared a photo of himself days after revealing he’d had a pacemaker fitted, as he confirms he will be “ready” to start filming next month.

Thanking fans for their support throughout his recovery, he said in the Instagram post on Thursday that he has “gotten so many kind messages from all over the world.”

Schwarzenegger, 76, added that the pacemaker will not interfere with production of season 2 of the Netflix series “Fubar,” which is due to begin filming in April.

“I will be ready,” he said, adding: “You can only see it [the pacemaker] if you’re really looking for it.”

The “Terminator” star and former governor of California disclosed on Monday’s episode of his podcast “Arnold’s Pump Club” that he‘d had “surgery for a pacemaker and became a little bit more of a machine.”

Schwarzenegger was born with a bicuspid aortic valve – a congenital heart defect – and has had multiple heart surgeries.

In 1997, he underwent a pulmonic valve replacement, which helps blood flow from the heart to the lungs.

In 2018, he then had open-heart surgery to replace the aging pulmonic valve that had been inserted.

Two years later, he had surgery to replace his aortic valve, which helps blood flow out of the heart to the rest of the body.

With this latest procedure, Schwarzenegger said on the podcast that doctors advised him to get the pacemaker “because some scar tissue from my previous surgery had made my heartbeat irregular” for several years.

He added that he has to get regular check-ups and “that’s life with a genetic heart issue. But you won’t hear me complaining.”

Schwarzenegger said his recovery has gone smoothly, though he won’t be able to do any “serious training in the gym for a while.”

CNN’s Amarachi Orie contributed reporting.

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