Californian was teased for "beer belly" which turned out to be a 77-pound cancerous tumor

It seemed that every book went straight to the belly.

Hector Hernandez said that he had always been "a big guy". He did not notice any problems just a few years ago, when his arms and legs began to shrink as his belly grew bigger.

The 47-year-old from Downey, California, he also started fighting stomach burns and constipation and noticed that he sometimes had difficulty catching his breath.

At 300 pounds, he said, strangers had begun to look, and friends were making jokes about his "beer belly", although he said he rarely drank.

When he first talked about the problem to a doctor, he said, the doctor dismissed him, telling him that some people were carrying a different weight from that of other people.

"I just thought I was fat," Hernandez told a phone interview Tuesday with the Washington Post.

But Hernandez said his stomach continued to feel "heavy" and "hard" to the touch, so he got a second opinion.

In the end, he was diagnosed with a retroperitoneal liposarcoma, a rare but cancerous tumor that forms in fat cells, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Doctors do not know when the tumor started to develop.

Or why?

But he weighed 77 pounds, according to his surgeon.

Hernandez said that he did not know how to feel about the tumor nor about the surgical procedure necessary to remove it.

At first, he said, he was "shocked" and "confused", but also relieved to finally know what was wrong.

"I had a lot of support and prayers from my family and friends," he said, pointing out that they were raising money to help her recover . "I finally left it in the hands of God."

Hernandez surgeon William Tseng, an oncologist and badistant professor at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, said that liposarcomas grow over the years and can reach enormous heights, although they do not not tend to spread or cause major problems. Tseng, a sarcoma specialist, said that throughout his career, he had surgically removed dozens of them, weighing an average of 20 to 30 pounds.

"It's probably the biggest I've removed," he told La Poste, referring to Hernandez's tumor.

During the summer, Tseng removed the tumor that, according to him, had spared Hernandez's main blood vessels and organs, even though he had had to cut out a damaged kidney. Tseng said that bleeding is the biggest risk badociated with surgery and that patients may die on the operation table, but that there have been no complications in the case of D & B # 39; Hernandez.

The surgeon said that Hernandez would not need to undergo chemotherapy or radiation therapy, but since liposarcomas often come back, Hernandez must periodically undergo follow-up exams to monitor the situation.

"I was really lucky," said Hernandez.

Now, Hernandez said that he felt "totally different" – more energetic and many, many lighter books.