Quick update:
I had surgery -- not laparoscopic as discussed in another thread, even though my surgeon is a pioneer in that technique. He said it wasn't appropriate for this particular procedure. Attached is a photo of my incision -- it measures 10". I know because I'm a guy and we measure shit down there.
The good news is that the pathology report showed no signs of cancer anywhere -- in the radiation-nuked former tumor site, in the several suspect lymph nodes removed, nowhere. This surprised the surgeon who was not expecting a clean pathology report and said he only gets 1 clean report for every 4 he expects. So this was extremely good. He's pretty even-keeled about things, but I could hear the excitement in his voice when he called with this news.
The 6 month chemo treatment I'm now in is "just in case". Based on the severity of my original prognosis, they want to make sure any little stragglers that may have sneaked out get knocked down now. They aren't aware of the cancer having spread anywhere, and based on the CT scan they said it would be tiny because there are no indications anywhere. So this should do it for me. One doc said I could get by with 4 months of treatment, but another told me not to tempt fate at this point by cutting things short. As much as I hate chemo, I decided to err on the side of caution and accept the full 6 months. I'll probably second-guess myself when the 4 months have passed, but I'm going to tough it out.
Happy ending.