MAMMOGRAM -- Doesn't that sound a little like a telegram that you'd send to a woman of a certain age? Like 'Ma'am-O-Gram'. I like that idea better than the actual process.

Of course there are many, many things I like better than the actual process, since the actual process involves having my breasts mashed so flat that I'm convinced they're going to explode. I found myself wondering if that's ever happened. One minute you have a decent pair of knockers; the next, something that resembles a deflated balloon.

It's been five years since my last mammogram (forgive me, radiologist, for I have sinned...it's been five years since my last mammogram...)

Let me start again. In the five years since my last mammogram, they've apparently introduced a note of whimsy into what is generally not a whimsical process. Before you get started, you get stickers to put on your nipples. I'm assuming this is so that when the radiologist reads your mammogram and sees a little knob of dense tissue protruding from your breast, he or she will know that it's just a nipple, not a tumor. Anyway, these stickers look a little bit like a 'snap' - like on baby clothes - there's a little nub of metal sticking up in the center of the sticker. Presumably this is the part that shows up on the film.

The whimsical part is that the sticker itself has flowers printed on it. They are positively decorative. I wanted to wear mine home. I think this is an amazing idea, and I'd like to shake the hand of the man or woman who not only came up with it, but pitched it to some medical supplier who thought it was worth paying to have these nipple stickers printed. I doubt it's cheap. I'm sure it jacks up the overall price of the things. I've decided to believe that this is a case of someone realizing that a little whimsy can go a long way towards relaxing a person in a stressful situation. The alternative, of course, is that someone in the medical supply business has a brother-in-law in the printing business.

So...here's the upshot: I have a smooth, oval-shaped, benign-looking MASS in my right breast. They will look for it on my films from five years ago, and if they see it there, then god bless and godspeed and they'll see me in a year for my next annual mammogram. If it wasn't there five years ago, then they'll see me in six months for another 'ma'am-o-gram' to see if anything has changed.

Either way - not too scary overall.