Hi Todd. First of all hope you are feeling ok - it’s such a difficult time at first. My now 64yr old healthy (we thought) husband was in stage 3 T3 N1 M0 2.5 yrs ago. He had 2 months of FLOT, an Ivor Lewis Esophagectomy and then 2 more months of FLOT (we are in the UK and since then the protocol has changed to include immunotherapy). The treatment saved his life. He is active, working normally and eating fairly normally but smaller portions. No pain. He got his life back due to the FLIT and surgery. The first series of FLOT chemo was not hard for him. He carried on doing exercise. He had a few minor side effects like tingling fingers and fatigue. The steroids that they give to suppress the side effects disturbed his sleep. The next series of FLOT after the op was a bit harder as he was very tired from surgery but he got through it without major problems. It was definitely worth it as we believe he’d now be dead without it…The reaction to chemo is so individual it’s hard to predict. But this disease is a hard one and it will grow and metastasise without conventional treatments and surgery. Regarding alternative treatments : a few months after the last FLOT series when he was feeling stronger I read and listened to podcasts about metabolic treatment of cancer which includes the use of repurposed medications and also low carb/ keto nutrition. My husband refused to go on a strict ketogenic diet but eats less carbs now and did go to a physician who treats cancer through metabolic pathways ( which are still considered experimental) as well as using conventional treatments. He put him on a regime of repurposed meds of Mebendazole, Atorvastatin, Metformin and also Doxycillin ( which he stopped due to side effects). These four meds work synergistically to help stop cancer cells from growing. In May it will be 3 yrs since diagnosis … so far so good. I don’t know if my husband got lucky or this alternative treatment has helped but it’s not doing any harm so we are continuing with it. His prognosis when first diagnosed was poor and the tumor had already burst out of local lymph nodes. There was not enough evidence to use Ivermectin but Mebebdazole is a different anti parasitic drug which we are using. However, I can’t state strongly enough the importance of getting through the conventional treatment and surgery first however tough it may seem. It won’t go away without it. Sending good carma … hope you get through it easily and you’ll soon be on the mend. .