Can't do the surgery

Hi All,

My uncle was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in March and they seemed to have a good plan, with chemo then radiation and hopefully not the surgery, which is what we realized we should have done right away all along. He handled the chemo pretty well - strong guy, very together, pushed himself a little and still went to work. The radiation we are figuring out I think did more harm then good, could not swallow, a lot of tissue. Thought all of the cancer was gone, when tissue was just covering it. He is now T3N1M0. He went into the hospital with some complications a month or so ago and he expected to get the surgery and the surgeon said he could not do it and it would kill him (I am led to believe he is one of the top surgeons too). According to my family, the tumor is too high up, became larger, and touching/associated with too many other organs? They left the hospital discussing palliative care, which made me beyond sad, but changed their tune a little and said lets try some more rounds of a different chemo and hopefully it will shrink the tumor, which could lead to doing the surgery. The one thing I think the chemo helped with was making sure the cancer didn't spread elsewhere, which gives me hope. He has now had pneumonia twice, he has been on a feeding tube for months, his weight has been okay and has stayed the same, and he recently got a stent put in due to the tumor pushing into the trachea. His spirits are slowly diminishing as well as his wife's. Today they are visiting their oncologist and the surgeon I guess to discuss the next plan of action if there is one. I am trying to think of questions to ask. They are considering MD Anderson, but I hope to God they don't turn them down. We are also asking if the surgeon would just risk his life and do the operation. We are also going to try to send records to a Dr. Kelson at Sloan Kettering in NYC to see if he can come up with a different chemo regime that could shrink it that no one has thought of (but he is out of town for the next 2 weeks). We are also with Pinnacle Care too and hoping something else will come up. If anyone has any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them, especially before these appts today. Any good questions we can ask? I just want him to be able to eat again and drink again. His coughing is really terrible too, it is really sad to hear. Thank you for listening. It means a lot.
Best,
Tory