GOP senator undergoing follow-up surgery next week

Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), who had emergency heart surgery in 2014, will undergo a follow-up operation next week.

“My doctors have been monitoring me since the surgery. After consulting with my doctors, I have elected to go ahead and have this done during the August recess so I will be ready to go when the Senate comes back into session in September,” the GOP senator said in a statement on Thursday.

{mosads}Boozman was admitted to the hospital in 2014 after suffering from pain in his chest and arm. Doctors discovered at the time that he had a tear in his aorta, the body’s largest artery.

“As many of you may remember, I had surgery in 2014 to repair a tear in my aorta. About 30 percent of the time after this type of procedure, additional surgery is required,” he said on Thursday.

The surgery is scheduled for Tuesday at a D.C.-area hospital.

Boozman separately told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the surgery, which he referred to as a “tweak”, would keep him in the hospital for three to five days with “a couple of weeks of really taking it easy.”

“It’s a good time to do it, and then I should be blowing and going. We’re going to have a really busy September, I believe, when we come back,” he told the Arkansas publication.