Humour Cafe

Tragic story of world's heaviest woman

Renee Williams became the largest person ever to have gastric bypass surgery earlier this year after ballooning to nearly seventy stone – but died 12 days later.

The bedridden 29-year-old begged doctors to perform the operation when she became so large that she couldn't hug her two children.

Her astonishing size meant that the operating table had to be specially widened for the procedure.

Larger than life: Renee Williams weight balloned from 40 to 70 stone after a car crash

The operation was successful and Renee lost four stone due to her reduced stomach capacity before dying of a sudden heart attack less than two weeks later. Her story is told in a Channel 4 programme next week.

Renee, from Austin, Texas, had battled with her weight since childhood and was classified as super-morbidly obese at the age of 12.

She was married by the age of 15 and had her first child, Mirina, at 16 weighing 30 stone.

Renee had grown to a massive 35 stone by the time she had her second daughter Mariah.

"When you don't have that thing in your head that tells you you're full, it's disgusting the amount of food you can eat," She said.

In 2003, she was hit by a drunken driver in an accident that left her unable to walk because her leg was crushed.

She became bedridden and began eating even more.

"She wouldn't stop eating until her stomach started to hurt," says 13-year-old Mirina.

"She would get about eight burgers and eat them all. I kept telling her she was eating her emotions. I think she was sick and tired of being in that bed."

Renee piled on more and more weight and by 2007 she was nearing 70 stone - six times the size of a healthy woman in her age group.

She begged doctors to perform gastric bypass surgery on her and was turned down by 12 who insisted that the operation was too dangerous for a woman of her size.

"I understand the risks but I am not going to make it if I don't have the surgery," Renee said at the time.

"I want to be able to care for my daughters and see them graduate high school."

Gastric bypass surgery makes the stomach smaller and allows food to bypass part of the small intestine. Patients feel full sooner, consume fewer calories and lose weight.

Houston's Renaissance hospital finally agreed to perform the surgery after Renee's condition deteriorated and she was given just a year to live by doctors.

The operation on February 20th took five hours as surgeons had to cut through masses of fat to secure the band.

"I feel like I've been run over by a truck," she said afterwards.

Renee began to lose weight immediately but suffered a sudden heart attack on March 4th which took her life.

"I wanted to sit down in a corner and die." Says a distraught Mirina.

"Mom was my best friend and now she has gone it hurts."'

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525 m deep, 1200 meters in diameter.

Weird and wonderful hotel experiences from around the world

Fancy spending your holidays inside an old sewer pipe or doing a stretch in a prison cell, for fun? Incredibly, now you can. These are just two of the weird and wonderful places to stay collected in a new book, Extreme Hotels. So pack your bags and book in for the strangest bed and breakfast experiences in the world...

Cockpit and cocktails: An old Bristol freighter doubles as a motel in Otorohanga, New Zealand. There's one suite in the old pilot's quarters and one in the tail.


A woof over your head: When two chainsaw artists in Idaho, U.S.A, decided to create a roadside attraction to entice visitors to their studio, this was the result - Sweet Willy, the Beagle B&B.

Call the lifeboat: These two marine survival capsules in The Hague, Netherlands, have been converted to a hotel.

For cave men and their women: You can stay in these 5th century cliff dwellings in Cappadocia, Turkey, now warmly reappointed as rooms for rent.


What a dive: This is the visible portion of the Utter Inn in Sweden, a 'cottage' with an underwater room. You are just rowed out to it and left in peace, with only the fish for company.

Cold cuts only? The Igloo Village provides surprisingly warm accommodation in a ski resort high in the Swiss Alps

Pipe dream: Pieces of concrete sewage pipe in Austria have been fitted with beds, and you pay only what you think they are worth.

VAT included: Old winemaking barrels have been turned into bedrooms in Stavoren, Holland.

Doing porridge: A former military prison in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is now a youth hostel called Celica (which means cell)

Towel Elephant

Step by step instructions on how to fold a towel elephant like this one:

1. Lay your towel on a flat surface

2. Fold the ends in

3. Fold the folded ends once again

4. Roll the left and right end of the towel towards the middle


5. Fold the rolled towel so that rolls are facing out and the smooth side is facing in. This is the body and the legs of the elephant.

6. Put the legs aside and lay a new towel on a flat surface (this time use a smaller towel)

7. Pin the center of the long towel side down so that it doesn't move

8. Roll the top edges toward inside


9. Continue rolling to the center until you can't roll anymore

10. Turn the roll over so that the rolled side faces down and the flat side up toward you

11. Roll the tip up in a tight roll to form a trunk. Squeeze slightly to help the towel keep a curl once it's released

12. Grasp the flat area of towel between the two towel points at the side that is facing down and unroll it away from the center. This will spread the wide end points into shape of ears and form the forehead of the elephant.

13. Tuck in the sides of the face

14. Place the head on top of the legs

And your towel elephant should look something like this:

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