Alex had TPF induction. He was severely underweight to begin with and had a very tough time. His lung collapsed and he eventually underwent thoracotomy at a time when it was extremely dangerous to do so but he survived.

My thought in your situation, is that the RO is the overriding expert for radiation and chemoradiation and the MO should be the overriding expert on chemotherapy. Unless one is clearly more qualified than the others, this would be my leaning. There are many studies that are inconclusive but the doctors use the treatments anyway. the induction regimens using taxotere look very promising indeed and probably need to be bigger and longer before we can say there is a definite advantage.

You choice when it all boils down is trading off a better chance of it not coming back vs a greater chance of having worse side effects which could be long term, life changing and sometimes fatal.

The question that we asked ourselves was this:
Which would give us cause for more regret or despair: Choosing chemoradiation and having the cancer come back; or suffering long term (possibly life changing) side effects and forever wondering if it was necessary?

For us the answer became clear - and Alex chose to throw everything at it and suffer or dodge the side effects. Once you have made your decision, whatever it is, move forward firmly and decisively. Do not second guess yourself and do not allow yourself the "what ifs" which can do your head in if you let it.

If you had asked this question whilst Alex was undergoing induction, he would have asked you to shoot him, but 6 weeks out from chemo with a "complete response" showing on the PET, he would have said it was probably worth it. Today he is fairly well, has gone back to work full time, but is still painfully thin and can't really eat much other than soups and soft stews. His response now is that he would do it the same way all over again.

Essentially, we got through all the treatment that was thrown at him and Alex is doing very well 3 years out. Despite his hardships, he has a new perspective on life and only said to me yesterday that 2012 was his best ever year (the year he came off all drugs, got a job finally waved his ex into the sunset, and started "practicing" with soup). He describes himself as "content".

I see a lot more than "content". He is in the process of renovating the apartment and I have never seen him so fired up! His experience over the last couple of years has taught him that big successes happen in little steps. The bravery emerges in taking that first step ... He's already talking about what the kitchen and bathrooms should look like and we haven't even finished the living areas yet