Governor Terry Branstad.

Governor Terry Branstad.

Iowa’s governor will undergo outpatient surgery on Monday. According to a statement from the governor’s office, Governor Terry Branstad will undergo a “routine procedure to treat varicose veins in his legs” and the recovery time for this kind of surgery is “about one week.”

Doctors recommend that Branstad, who is 68 years old, rest and elevate his legs following the surgery, which means he is to stay off his feet. Branstad “will be available for business calls and meetings, as needed” but he has no public events scheduled next week.

According to his staff, Branstad plans to return to his “regular schedule on Tuesday, January 6.

In May of 2010, during his bid to return as Iowa’s governor, Branstad underwent what his staff called “an elective heart procedure” to insert a second stent in one of his arteries.

The governor had gone in for a routine angiogram and his doctor located a partially-blocked artery in his heart. Branstad returned to the campaign trail a few days later.

Branstad had a heart attack in December of 2000, when he was 54 years old. It happened about a year after he left office following 16 consecutive years as governor.  Doctors inserted a stent in his heart back then to keep an artery open.