Jeff, welcome to the best place to calm fears with real information as opposed to speculation. I would caution you, however, that some of what you may read here is worst case, this being a place where people come with problems. There are many who used to post here who have gone on to happy lives. I had surgery, radiation, chemo, and a PEG tube and had no problems, recovered quickly and have felt just fine for more than four years now. There are many of us who had a reasonably uneventful course of treatment and you will not read too much about that here. Just something to keep in mind before you scare yourself silly, as I did. You have been given good advice about asking questions, because there will always be someone here with real life experience to answer you. Take a deep breath now, and realize that this is something you can do, which in the larger picture, is but a small part of your life.