A California doctor removed a 59kg (130-pound) tumour from a Mississippi man who had been told by other physicians that he was just fat.
Roger Logan, 57, had the non-cancerous growth removed on January 31 at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital, where he will remain for another week or so before returning to Gulfport, Mississippi.
The tumour probably started as an ingrown hair that became infected, swelled and developed its own blood supply, Logan's surgeon, Dr. Vipul Dev, told the Bakersfield Californian.
It sprouted from his lower abdomen more than a decade ago.Doctors told him: "You're just fat, it's just fat," Logan told KERO-TV in Bakersfield.
The tumour grew so massive that it hung to the floor when he sat.
"I used to equate it, you just put a strap around your neck and carry three bags of cement around with you all day long, just swinging," Logan said.
Virtually unable to move, he spent most of his time in a recliner in one room of his home.
By the time the tumor reached 59-63kg (130 to 140 pounds), doctors told Logan it was too risky for him to have surgery, giving him only a 50 per cent chance of surviving it.
But his wife, Kitty, scoured the country for specialists to perform the operation and found Dev, who had performed similar surgeries.
"She just kept pushing," Logan told the Californian. "She wouldn't let me quit."
Logan finally made the 3218km, 40-hour trip to Central California with his chair bolted to the floor of a cargo van, "just like I was in my living room at home," Logan told the paper.
Logan is now recovering and last Thursday he was able to walk for practically the first time in years.
"My feet are together," Logan said, wiggling his toes in his hospital bed. "They haven't been together in years."
He is looking forward to returning home and resuming his life, out of an armchair.