David, I remember being crazy with worry about my husband's quality of life as he was starting into treatment. One of the things I was worried about, was that he would have no saliva and I couldn't imagine what that would be like for him. It turned out that although his saliva is significantly diminished, it has not really been a problem for him. Even without Amifostine, which he did try, but only for one day, as it made him extremely sick. Try not to worry too much about what might be. The treatment was certainly very rough, but day by day as my husband was going through it, I found myself thinking "it is going to get really bad, I don't know how he is going to make it through when it gets worse..." And while I was doing all that worrying, the day finally came and the treatment was finished and he survived! And is still surviving, quite well. Not that it was easy for him by any stretch, but much of what I stressed about, which was the worst case scenario type of stuff, did not happen. Hope this eases your anxiety a bit in supporting an aggressive treatment for your dad. Good luck.