Gail, Do they treat people at Hopkins on the major holidays? Just wondering--it was interesting to hear that statistic about losing 1% or more effectiveness per day. I ended up having two days that were breaks from my normal schedule--but neither were because I was having an acute reaction. One was Memorial Day and one was a day when apparently teh whole machine went whacky and had to be reprogrammed and triple-checked before using it to treat anyone again. I've heard neither of these things are unusual during treatment--holidays and issues with machines working (especially, apparently, if you are having IMRT) but I'm wondering if maybe they are not done at the top places. there are so man y little things like that that could make all the difference. You're lucky Johns Hopkins is in your backyard!