Sorry to hear your husband's surgery did not go as expected yesterday. They need a window between the completion of chemo/radiation (think it is more the radiation) and the time they do a PET in order to avoid false positive scans. But they also have a surgical window they like to fit into after radiation, before the tissue becomes tougher to work with surgically. I always feel vaguely disconcerted even when we get good PET/CT results because I know they can miss it totally when it's widely spread and not very concentrated in any area. When my husband consulted the surgeon, it was our understanding that if they found any cancer where his lung mets had been, they would close him back up.
Do you know how widely spread it was...you mentioned liver. If that was the only spread, perhaps someone with liver mets will come forward with suggestions for an appropriate place to go and talk about treatment. They may have given up on surgery, but could plan systemic chemo treatment if they feel there could be a benefit from it, or perhaps one of the newer treatments that target the liver.