Any insights on surgery decision?

My 62 year old manfriend was diagnosed 12/23/09 with T3N1 squamous EC. The primary lesion is just under the sternum, the node near the collarbone. In the initial blur, we both heard the docs explain that any surgery would have to be delayed until the lesion was (hopefully) shrunk with chemo/rad. He's had 1 week of fluorouracil/cisplatin and 5 weeks of radiation, then nothing the last two weeks. The rad doc says it's still too soon to do another PET scan. The GI doc inserted a g-tube Friday, and said that the lesion appears to be responding to treatment, that it seemed cleaner and had produced significant scarring and stricture.
Here's the big question. He is scheduled for another week of chemo starting tomorrow, and not sure how many more weeks of radiation starting Tuesday. Now we are hearing that my friend has to decide on a treatment course - that if he is even considering surgery EVER, the radiation cannot go forward. The rad doc seems very concerned and says missing this window, i.e. not resuming radiation at this time, would mean future radiation wouldn't have much use.
We are also hearing that if he should go ahead with radiation, then he can't ever have surgery.
We are told that the two local thoracic surgeons believe the operation is too dangerous at this time (and unfortunately, my friend totally did not hit it off with the recommended surgeon, but that's another story...) My friend's health status pre-diagnosis was so-so, a little HBP, not diabetic, certainly not overweight (there'd been a slow weight loss for maybe a year leading up to diagnosis) and he smoked too much. It's ALL too much, I know. He still is smoking but now about 1/2 pack a day or less. We live an hour from San Francisco, but are told that it would be at least 3 to 5 weeks to set up any sort of surgical consultation at one of the major teaching medical centers there, that if the consultation were pursued, there can't be any radiation during that time and that the local rad doc believes the time lapse to be very dangerous.
We are thoroughly confused! I've been reading these boards now and then since his diagnosis and it's really clear to me that so many of you who have been through this are probably as insightful and practical as all of the docs put together, if not more. We would both appreciate so much any advice. We feel as though this is a hugely important decision and it's not the way we thought things would go at the beginning. Where are our thoughts getting offtrack? ARE they off track? Haven't some of you had surgery after more than one round of chemo/rad? Thanks so much.