Brian Sanchez, a married father of two, revealed in an interview with The Sun that he opted for surgery because he was unhappy with his physical appearance.
After sitting next to his much-taller brother-in-law, Brian realized that his legs were too short for his body.
“I’m broad, have long arms, and I’m wide, but my short legs make me look different. I almost look like a huge thumb, like those thumb men from ‘Spy Kids’,” he said.
After coming to this realization, Sanchez said he took to the internet to research leg-lengthening operations and found an hospital in Turkey.
His family initially found it hard to believe that he was considering such a procedure, but they also knew it was typical of him to make daring choices
“I know this is a very crazy thing, it’s extremely expensive, time-consuming, difficult, painful and even risky in some respects,” he said.
Sanchez spent roughly $37,000 on his first leg surgery in December 2022. “They broke my tibia and fibula and hollowed out the inside of the tibia, taking out the bone marrow,” he told The Sun.
“They then put a rod inside the bone and fastened it with screws and attached the bone segments via pins to external fixators so you have this piece of steel on the outside of your legs and have these constant open wounds that won’t close until you remove all the hardware.”
In March, he invested another $69,587 for the second surgery to lengthen his femurs, and he felt great afterwards.
“There was almost no pain throughout the entire process, only from lengthening from actually stretching my legs.”
Sanchez, who is currently in a wheelchair as he recovers, has successfully added a total of 7 inches to his height.
“From the few times that I’ve already stood up, it is bizarre to see people that used to be my height come up to under my nose — it’s really weird, and it’s a lot of fun just seeing the world in a slightly different perspective.”
