Former President George W. Bush is in recovery after a successful heart surgery at a Dallas hospital on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
Bush, 67, was "in high spirits, eager to return home tomorrow and resume his normal schedule on Thursday," spokesman Freddy Ford said in a statement.
The ex-president needed to undergo surgery to open a blockage in his artery. Reuters published the following statement:
"Doctors discovered the blockage on Monday during Bush's annual physical exam at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas...Doctors recommended a stent to open the blockage and he underwent surgery on Tuesday morning at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital."
According to Reuters, Bush was fitness enthusiast his presidency from 2001-2009. He enjoyed running before knee pain forced him to switch to biking.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served under Bush's term, also suffers from heart problems. According to the Huffington Post, Cheney suffered from several heart attacks, received a bypass and a pump, before undergoing heart transplant surgery in 2012.
Cheney gave his first interview to ABC News four months after his successful transplant surgery. The former vice president reportedly knew he was close to death.
"Two years ago this time I was on a respirator, heavily sedated. Just had a pump... installed on my heart because my heart had gotten so weak after six heart attacks and 30-some years of heart disease that it was, you know, it was at the end," Cheney told ABC.
Cheney had waited two years before receiving the transplant. Though he does not know the name of the heart donor, he is incredibly grateful for the "generous gift he received."
"I can't think of a more magnificent gift than to be given additional years of life," Cheney told ABC.
The former vice president was 71-years-old at the time of the surgery, older than the average heart transplant patients, but there is no cutoff age for the procedure.
According to the Huffington Post, "more than 70 percent of heart transplant recipients live at least five years, though survival is a bit lower for people over age 65."
