Stuntman Continues to Soar After Brain Surgery to Treat Rare Hormonal Disorder

As his face and body slowly transformed, Raymond Kohn no longer recognized himself.

“I felt like a cave man,” says the 47-year-old restorer of muscle cars from Warren, Ohio, who also performs eye-popping ramp-to-ground stunt jumps in replicas of the orange Dodge Charger showcased in the popular 1980s television series “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

“My face, my hands, my voice, my weight. Everything was changing,” Raymond adds.

Like a slow-motion version of the science fiction character “The Incredible Hulk,” Raymond began experiencing subtle changes in his body around 2015. His knees were so pain-ridden it became difficult to walk. Despite three surgeries to clean out arthritis and repair a torn ligament, the searing pain remained.

He also began putting on massive amounts of weight, soaring to 335 pounds from his normal 220. “In order for me to jump in the cars safely, I had to be under a certain weight. But I was hungry all the time and had to practically starve myself. To get my weight down, I tried working out at the gym even though it was painful on my knees.”

Raymond began taking medications for high blood pressure and to stave off diabetes, but it wasn’t just his weight that was out of control. His hands swelled so much his wedding ring had to be resized three times, and his shoe size increased from 10 to 12. He even needed to buy a larger helmet.

Because the changes occurred slowly over time, his family members didn’t notice his transition, but Raymond did, every day. Gaps began to form between his teeth, impacting his ability to chew food. He would also suffer from blurred vision, excessive water leaking from one eye and folds of skin emerged atop his bald head.

“Sometimes, when I was alone, I would just sob, thinking ‘What is happening to me?’”

Finally, about two years ago, a dermatologist Raymond visited recognized that his various symptoms were likely related. After meeting with two Cleveland Clinic specialists, neurosurgeon Varun Kshettry, MD, and endocrinologist Divya Yogi-Morren, MD, Raymond was able to confirm what the dermatologist had suspected.

He suffered from acromegaly, a rare and serious condition that affects bones and tissues, causing them to grow irregularly. It occurs when the body produces too much growth hormone, usually because a tumor is arising from the pituitary gland, which is nestled in a small space called the sella turcica in the base of the brain, behind the bridge of the nose.

Dr. Kshettry, who specializes in skull base and pituitary surgery, wasn’t surprised other medical professionals who had examined Raymond didn’t suspect acromegaly. “When changes like his are happening slowly and incrementally, it can be a lot harder to notice, or easy to think they are due to something else, like his stuntman profession.”

Raymond was relieved to finally have a diagnosis for his complex array of medical issues. However, as he readily admits, the thought of brain surgery being his best treatment option frightened him. “I’ve been in a lot of life-threatening situations, but brain surgery is the scariest thing I’ve ever faced.”

He was also concerned the operation required to remove the tumor and stem the flow of growth hormone would force him to retire from stunt jumping. “I’m still young. I’m not ready to give up what I love. The first thing I asked Dr. Kshettry was, ‘Can I still jump after the surgery?’ And he said I could go back to living my life the way I always have. And that’s exactly what happened.”

Dr. Kshettry performed the surgery in June 2023. The procedure, called transsphenoidal endoscopic surgery, required him to access the 9-millimeter tumor affixed to Raymond’s 10-millimeter pituitary gland through his nose and sphenoid sinus, a hollow space in the skull behind the nasal passages.

Dr. Kshettry explains while the surgery is relatively non-invasive, it does require intricate precision because pituitary tumors are soft, like toothpaste. “We use instruments that are tiny and sharp, because it’s like trying to resect a whole piece of gelatin without letting it break apart.”

Dr. Kshettry also pays special attention to the lining called dura mater that surrounds the pituitary gland, because newer research suggests tumor cells often invade and hide in this lining. As he explains, “With this kind of tumor, even if 0.1% of the tumor’s cells remain, it can prevent the hormone levels from normalizing. So, we used advanced techniques to remove this lining surrounding the pituitary gland safely.”

When the tumor is removed, the pituitary gland may immediately return to its normal function of growth hormone production. Indeed, when Raymond awakened from the surgery, he noticed some of his symptoms – including the watery eye – no longer existed.

Over several weeks and months, his joint pain subsided, and he returned to his normal weight. Also, the reduction in tissue swelling enabled him to easily slip on a jacket he wears for his stuntman jumps. Before the surgery, his wrist had gotten too puffy to fit through the sleeve.

Raymond is considering undergoing elective surgery to address issues that won’t improve on their own, like realigning his jaw to make it easier to eat and repairing his knee joints.

Since his brain surgery, Raymond has been able to resume stunt jumping. In 2024, about one year after the surgery, he set a record by soaring 217 feet through the air in a historic stunt car at an event in Hebron, Ohio. In late June 2025, he – with the aid of his Northeast Ohio Dukes stunt team – is planning to jump over a historic water fountain in the center of a downtown square in Somerset, Kentucky.

“I’m so thankful the doctors at Cleveland Clinic took the time to fix me,” Raymond exclaims. “I feel like a million bucks.”