There is nothing wrong with carrying around a little extra chub, so long as you are physically healthy and capable.
Each and every single one of us is an individual who differs in height and appearance.
As you can imagine, the physical shape of our bodies will also obviously vary as well!
This means a healthy body will look different on every single one of us, despite what media would like you to think.
In other words, there is nothing wrong with being fatter or skinnier than others, so long as you are healthy!
In Hector Hernandez’s case, however, the situation was a lot more harmful than an innocent bit of fat.
The 47-year-old Californian had always professed to be physically larger than most of his friends and family, and he was perfectly fine with that.
While he might have been on the receiving end of some light-hearted teasing, it was never done with any harmful intentions.
Plus, he was quite comfortable with his physical appearance – that is, until his belly wouldn’t stop growing.
Even though he was not a beer drinker and was relatively careful with what he ate, it seemed that every pound of his body weight went straight to his growing stomach.
It was only Hernandez realized a couple of years later that his stomach had not only grown absurdly large at what seemed to be the cost of the muscle and tissues in his arms and legs as well.
Additionally, he was suffering from other health issues like constipation and heartburn, and often struggled to catch his breath.
Alarmed, Hernandez went to see a doctor in 2016 regarding his stomach.
At first, he was simply brushed off by the healthcare professional, who simply told Hernandez that everyone carries their body fat differently.
However, by this point, Hernandez refused to believe that was simply the case.
At his heaviest of 300 pounds, his stomach had ballooned up to the size of a beach ball and felt incredibly heavy while being hard to the touch.
On top of that, it was affecting his physical and emotional state.
It wasn’t simply just affecting the way he moved around – including preventing him from tying his own shoelaces, it was also making him the target of ridicule and scorn.
All the while, the rest of him kept getting thinner, almost as if the rest of his body was suffering in relation to the growth of his stomach.
Undeterred by his previous doctor’s judgement, Hernandez pushed for a second opinion the next year.
Eventually, his case was referred to a surgical oncologist named William Tseng, who worked with Keck Medicine – a healthcare service comprising of several hospitals and outpatient clinics that are based in and around the University of Southern California.
It was there he learned about his real diagnosis via testing.
A rare form of cancer called liposarcoma, which originated from his fat cells before migrating and taking hold in his abdomen in the form of a 77-pound tumor.
Considering tumors of this kind averaged at around 20 to 30 pounds, this was a beast.
Since then, Hernandez has been recovering well. He has unfortunately lost one kidney to the tumor, by the virtue of the tumor simply swallowing up the organ and rendering it nonfunctional.
That aside, the slow-moving cancer had not spread to any other part of the body, and he will undoubtedly be perfectly alright.
