A 28-year-old Texas man spent a whopping $75,000 to increase his height, a dream which he wanted to achieve since he was 12. The reason behind his surgery – he wanted to be like the basketball heroes he grew up with.

According to a report in Daily mail, Alfonso Flores was under the care of Harvard-trained orthopedic surgeon Dr Kevin Debiparshad, based in Las Vegas. Following his surgery, Flores said that he feels happy now that he has achieved his dream of topping 6ft.

“I know 5’11 is a great height, and many people would love to be that tall, but I wanted just a little more than that.  This is something that I’ve really wanted to do as far as I can remember – since I was 12,” Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

“I decided to go for 6’1 because I started off at a great height and wanted to retain as much of my athletic ability and range of motion as possible. I seem to have retained all of it because I am able to squat the same as before,” he further added.

‘I really wanted to be more like my heroes. All of my heroes were super tall. Particularly people like Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant, and of course my father,” he said of his childhood heroes.

According to the surgeon, the hour-long femur-lengthening procedure is minimally invasive, with only four to six incisions that are made in the patient’s thigh.

Talking about life after surgery, Flores said he did not feel pain after the operation and had no discomfort in his legs throughout the process.

“My bones are pretty much consolidated since having the surgery,” he said. 

The 28-year-old man, who is enjoying his new height, said that the past seven months has been a dream-come-true for him.