The world’s heaviest man is scheduled to have surgery to reduce fat on Wednesday in a Mexico hospital.
Andres Moreno, who is 37, weighs nearly 960 lbs. He has been confined to bed and suffers serious health conditions.
"I start a journey that must carry me to a new phase of life, a new chapter and I hope to a new book altogether, different and far from the prison that my own body has become," Moreno said in an interview with EFE.
Moreno weighed slightly more than 13 lbs. when he was born. At the age of 10, he tipped the scales at 264.5 lbs.
Moreno will undergo a duodenal switch with biliopancreatic diversion, a procedure known to produce the best result in patients with extreme obesity, at the Mexico Gastric Bypass unit in the Arboledas Hospital.
A team of seven assisted his travel from his home in Obregon City to the hospital in Guadalajara on Monday morning.
Five members of the Obregon City firefighters carried him on a special reinforced stretcher to fly in an Airbus A-320 to Guadalajara, where he will be directly admitted for the surgery to be performed by surgeon Jose Castañeda.
The Director of Mexico Gastric Bypass board, Judith Tavares, told EFE, "Andres is like a vase that has suffered several blows and we do not know at what point it can shatter."
Castañeda told EFE the first problem was where the surgery would be carried out since the routine operating table had never supported such weight before.
The anesthetic process is also a cause for concern since "there are not enough precedents in medical history on operating on patients with this much weight" as well as his co-morbidities, or additional disorders or diseases related to obesity, he said.
The surgery will involve five medical staff and will be conducted in two phases.
The laparoscopic technique will shorten the post-surgical process much and if there are no complications, the doctors will keep him admitted for five days after the surgery.
Just hours from the surgery, Moreno said he was looking forward to "overcome this step and be someone with a normal body."
"To have a second chance, my Christmas gift a little early," he said.
The Guinness World Record listed Manuel Uribe, known as 'Meme,' as having been the heaviest man alive. Uribe, who also was a native of Mexico, died last year.
His record peak weight was 1,230 pounds (560 kilograms) in 2006.
Uribe, 48, had been admitted to a hospital in his natal Nuevo Leon last year with symptoms of cardiac arrythmia and other health complications, according to El Universal newspaper.
Based on reporting by EFE.
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