Jon:
You have been given excellent advice from memebers of this site. I too believe that the operation they recommend is too drastic.

I was diagnosed with BOT cancer in January. The tumor was too large to operate for quality of life purposes.
I did some research and convinced my doctors' to do "Induction Therapy." I had Cisplatin, 5-FU and Docetaxel, but I think there are several combinations. There was a very large study done (500-800 patients) called TAX323 and TAX324 that showed excellent results. The Therapy reduced my primary tumor about 80%. After Induction Therapy, I did 7 weeks of Tomotherapy radiation. Tomotherapy is a IMRT machine that is able to very closely target the tumor and avoid healthy tissues. I tolerated each treatment very well, but typically most patients experience more side effects. I was the lucky one.
Unfortunately, I'm just 3 months out of treatment so I can't give you any long term prognosis as yet.

Your doctor may be able to download the study from www.nejm.org.

One other note: In Europe, I am told, that there are companies that will test the biopsy against OC chemo drugs to see determine which drugs would be most effective.

Hope this helps
Sandyst