What the hell IS that?

Losing 200 pounds makes all kinds of weird stuff appear out of nowhere on your body. Most people, the layperson, would call these things bones. There's also a thing called a neck. Rounded protrusions referred to as knees, ankles and wrists. I have a chin now.

But ribs...my ribs are kinda freaking me out. I noticed it about a month or so ago and they're getting worse. Or better, depending on your point of view. It's not the ribs themselves, it's the position of them.

I told Erich I had weird ribs. He laughed. "You're supposed to have ribs," he assured me. "No...they're WEIRD." Again he laughed. I told him to wait till we were lying down in bed and I'd show him. The weirdness is more pronounced then.

So I pulled up my shirt and said "See?" He looked. His brow furrowed a bit, then his eyes widened. "Feel them," I challenged him. So he did. He bit his bottom lip and said "Hm." I smiled in victory. "I told you they were weird."

They protrude oddly; like, waaaayyyy out. It feels and looks like a deformity of some sort. I asked my strangely intelligent husband, who is also known as MacGyver in our circle of family and friends because he really can take a matchstick and a few rocks and build you a house or something, what he thought the problem was. He said maybe my internal organs, the liver in particular, were so enlarged that over time, my ribs had pushed themselves out to accommodate them. Now it was my turn to say "Hm."

Could be, I suppose. Dr. Genaw did tell me that mine was one of the largest livers he'd ever encountered and was very glad I'd lost all that weight pre-op, as he would've hated to have seen it beforehand. I've been doing some poking around online about this but haven't found anything relating losing a lot weight with strangely protruding ribs. I'm going to email Dr. Genaw about it. They don't hurt, but they're just, well, weird.

I really cleaned out my closet Sunday night, getting rid of two huge boxfuls of stuff. I tried on most things and if it was baggy and made me look pregnant, it was outta there. I find I really want well-fitting clothes now whereas I used to want everything baggy. I have a waist now and want to define it, not hide it. So I put these clothes up for sale on Kijiji and it appears my worst fears have been realized and I am, indeed, the fattest chick in Canada. (just kidding) Seriously, no bites. At all. I thought those clothes would be long gone by now. I know I would've snapped them up in a minute a couple years ago! Oh well. I'll leave the ad up for a week and if I still don't get a single response, I guess I'll donate them. I was hoping to make a little bit of cash, damnit.

My friend Lisa passed on a cheesecake cobbler recipe a couple weeks ago and OH MY!! I tweaked it a bit for dieters/gastric bypass patients, adding some stuff and substituting Splenda for sugar. She has graciously allowed me to re-post my concoction here for ya'll:

Cheesecake Cobbler

1 8oz pkg cream cheese (room temp)
1 egg
1 C. Splenda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tube of refrigerated crescent rolls
Two tablespoons sugar-free strawberry jam
A few chopped fresh strawberries

Mix together first 4 ingredients with electric mixer and pour into a casserole dish.
Tear apart crescent rolls and place on top of the cheesecake mixture.

Bake according to directions on crescent roll package, plus a few mins. Check it and when it's golden brown it's done.

When I made this, I didn't use all the crescent rolls in the tube. Also, I think the cream cheese could easily be doubled. In fact, I intend to make this for Easter and will do just that. My whole family loved it, dieters or not!