42-year-old Michigan resident Dan Maurer began to gain weight in his teens and was already fat in 20 years.
However, obesity did not interfere with his personal life. He successfully married his peer Mindy and still lives with her.
But for almost 10 years, there has been no sexual intercourse between them due to the fact that Dan's scrotum has grown and turned into a huge tumor, which in the final stage weighed 80 pounds (36 kg).
From 2006 to 2015, Dan was forced to live with a huge bag dangling between his legs. It was impossible to hide the tumor with any wide pants.
“I became a prisoner of my own body,” the man told reporters, “I could not go to ordinary toilets, my penis was completely hidden inside the tumor.”
When the scrotum just started to enlarge, doctors initially thought it was a consequence of Dan's general obesity. But the tumor grew very quickly and the doctors could not make the correct diagnosis for a long time. It was only after 9 years that they finally found out that it was lymphedema (pathological swelling of soft tissues).
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Most often, lymphedema affects the arms or legs. Cases like this man's are very rare.
The tumor did not spread to the testicles and genitals and did not damage them, but they disappeared inside the edematous tissues. Dan described his suffering in one sentence, "as if three bowling balls were stitched into your scrotum and forced to walk with them."
Moreover, the tumor was also very painful.
In an attempt to slow the growth of the tumor, Dan's wife wrapped her in tight bandages daily. But that didn't help.
“I started wearing shorts that were longer and more spacious to hide the swelling. Then he only wore wide trousers. Then I tried to appear on the street as little as possible."
After establishing the correct diagnosis, Dan began looking for a doctor to operate on him. He was fortunate enough to get in touch with a Californian urologist, Joel Gelman. In 2015, a 14-hour surgery took place, during which Gelman and his team of 12 surgeons finally relieved Dan of his tumor.
According to Gelman, Dan Maurer's condition is a very rare anomaly.
Three years after the operation, Dan lost a little weight and now his efforts are aimed at losing weight even more. He is convinced that his lymphedema is due to obesity.