Pam
Chemo, depending on what you have is no all that bad. It also depends how (i.e. how many you get). At this point I have no long term effects from my chemo (as far as I know), the lasting effects (to date) are from radiation and surger
The way I see it: surgery purely local, radiation, local + regional (depending on the irradiated volume) and finally chemo which is systemic to kill of stuff that escaped (and which you do NOT see yet by a PET).
As far as Ethyol is concerned. This really depends on where you irradiate, especially with IMRT. You may not need it. There are 3 pairs of major glands (sublingual, submandibular and parotid). You need to talk with your RO (not MO) about this, the RO knows what structure/volume gets nuked and by how much. To give you an idea, my sublingual and submandibular glands are toast but the both parotids survived. I did not have it.
Re location of RO..... once you have set your radiation plan there is not real need to have this done is a big center. The question is where is the IMRT (not the RO) because you need to go there 33+ times.

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M