when you don't want to be a trailblazer

I talked to Deb today, our nuclear physicist friend who runs radiation therapy machines in Atlanta.  She gave me some suggestions for what questions I should ask when I have my 1st appointment at the radiation treatment center here in Boulder later this week, and also told me a little more about the process.  If I decide to go the center here, after the initial visit, I would need a set up appointment, where they'll do a CT scan of my arm, in the position that it will be for treatment, and then they'll also work on positioning my arm so that it can be held in exactly the same place without moving during each treatment, preferably out away from my core and head.  So radiation might not start in a week, because this is another step in the process.  She also said that, given the treatment is on my arm, I might not experience fatigue, and that the sunburn effect might not show up until after the treatment is over -- because some of the effects of the treatment don't manifest immediately.  This conversation was pragmatic and therefore comforting.  The key will be whether (a) I feel comfortable w/ the Dr., (b) they have the best machine for the treatment (tool for the job) in Boulder, because if not, I would need to go to one of their other branches, and (c) they've done sarcoma treatment before, because it's one thing not to be a specialty center, and it's something else again to be a first. Or second.  Deb says they treat sarcoma pretty regularly at her centers in Atlanta, so I'm hopeful that even though it's an unusual cancer, they (the 3 radiation oncologists) will have had experience with soft tissue sarcoma here.  Patience.