That's odd, LLT - I'm surprised that even when you said you wanted it for religious reasons they wouldn't give it to you. When I had surgery with Dr. Pearl, I asked for mine and they just smiled and said "sure." And sure enough, when I woke up later in my room, there it was, sealed in a little specimen jar. Thus far I haven't done anything with it; not sure what I will do with it, but I was really curious to see it in real life b/c it appeared drastically different on MRI and fluoroscope. And, like you, I felt a little weird leaving part of my body somewhere. Still, I doubt I would have felt that way had it been a tumor rather than a rib bone...