CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. — Former President Bill Clinton released a video on Wednesday, saying he is on the road to recovery after being hospitalized in Southern California for six days to treat an infection unrelated to COVID-19.
Clinton, 75, who arrived Sunday at his home in New York, said he was glad to be back home, and that he was “so touched by the outpouring of support” he received while hospitalized last week.
An aide to the former president said Clinton had a urological infection that spread to his bloodstream but was on the mend and never went into septic shock, a potentially life-threatening condition.
Clinton also thanked the doctors and nurses at the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif.
Hillary Clinton had been with her husband at the hospital and accompanied him as he left Sunday.
President Joe Biden said Friday night that he had spoken to Bill Clinton, and the former president "sends his best."
"He's doing fine; he really is," Biden said during remarks at the University of Connecticut.
In the years since Clinton left the White House in 2001, he has faced health scares. In 2004, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery after experiencing prolonged chest pains and shortness of breath. He returned to the hospital for surgery for a partially collapsed lung in 2005, and in 2010 he had a pair of stents implanted in a coronary artery.
He responded by embracing a largely vegan diet that saw him lose weight and report improved health.
Clinton has repeatedly returned to the stump after leaving the White House, campaigning for Democratic candidates, most notably Hillary Clinton during her failed 2008 bid for the presidential nomination. And in 2016, as Hillary Clinton sought the White House as the Democratic nominee, her husband — by then a grandfather and nearing 70 — returned to the campaign trail.