Morgan

Again, good for you on pushing back politely on some of these comments. IMO, You are fine being treated where you are. the Foley Center plan for you sounds exactly like the plan that my CCC, the Lombardi Cancer Center in Georgetown, had for me for a BOT tumor. (Radiation & Erbitux) I would have been worried if they had suggested surgery instead of radiation. Base of tongue cancer is not treated the same as other oral cancers or even lateral tongue cancers. Surgery is an option of last resort, to be avoided whenever possible. My understanding is that the majority of oncologists would not recommend surgery for even small tumors at the base of the tongue due to the potential complications.
My ENT surgeon was adamant on this point when she handed me over to the CCC RO and MO.

Two quick items: Erbitux is like that nursery rhyme: when it is good, it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
My only regret with my CCC plan was that I did not insist on getting carboplatin along with the Erbitux. For a minority of patients, Erbitux simply does not work. They have developed a test to weed out patients with colon cancer for whom it is worthless, but it's luck of the draw for us head and neck cancer patients. It could not hurt to discuss this with your doctors. I was told the same rosy story as you so I am a skeptic about Erbitux now. My doctors were upfront the second time around that there was no point in giving me any more Erbitux so they switched to carboplatin

As far as avoiding the PEG, it's difficult but can be done. I went thru all 40 radiation and 8 Erbitux with no feeding tube. I did end up living on liquids like Ensure Plus the last three weeks but I never got dehydrated nor needed any medical attention from not having a PEG. I was swallowing normally very shortly after radiation.

The American Cancer Society advice is generic and as I first posted, waiting and watching is actually good advice for prostate cancer - it's so slow growing and I've just seen another major study that no man over 65 should bother with surgery for prostate cancer but just do cyberknife . There are no such studies for base of tongue cancer - the longer you wait, the worse it gets.

Last but not least, have you asked about getting specific pain medication or muscle relaxants to take for the radiation table - I was pretty doped up each time on the stuff my radiologist prescribed and he said it would have no effect on the radiation's efficacy

You can always get surgery if worse comes to worse but lots of posters here did just fine with radiation and chemo only
Keep the Faith
Charm