[Dr. Frank fan]

I find it really bizarre if doctors really and truly made some sort of sweeping announcement to the effect "yes, medically he can definitely do both". I don't know what the circumstances were or what Giuliani's doctors said specifically (link, calcowgirl?), but a political campaign, from what I have read and seen, tends to involve lots of travel, little sleep per night and potentially having to be available to give interviews or make speeches at all hours of the day, and having to be in situations of nonstop stress/focus (everyone's watching). These are basically the opposite of things you want to be doing to your body while you are trying to give cancer treatments the best possible chance to work. And as a practical matter I don't know how you campaign for a statewide seat and yet still get to the clinic every day for your external beam therapy appointment for 5 weeks. So even if Giuliani "could have", on a strictly physical level, done both cancer treatment and a high-profile Senate campaign, would it have been a good idea for him? you know, to maximize the chances of preventing his death?

The main point is that it's just really tacky to take the line "awww, he could've done the treatment and campaigned too." I'm trying to understand what goes on in a person's head, why political obsessions twist someone's thinking so much, that they get to a place where their first instinct is to second-guess someone dealing with a cancer diagnosis and treatment regimen. Here is what Giuliani seems to have said at the time regarding his decision:

I've decided that what I should do is to put my health first and that I should devote the focus and attention that I should to be able to figure out the best treatment," he said.

Sounds 100%, eminently, and utterly plausible, reasonable, and intelligent to me. What earthly reason would one have to doubt Giuliani on this? And why does it matter in the first place?

Bizarre.

[KeithCu]

These people are Democratic plants. The idea that cancer is not a life-changing event is silly. For starters, you don’t know what the treatment will be, whether you will get it with the first kind of treatment, the effects of the treatment, and many other things. Don’t waste your time arguing with them about this!!

[calcowgirl]

Read what I first wrote again (”the doctors said they thought campaigning was perfectly within his physical capabilities and, if he started treatment right way, he would have recovered and been “full speed” by the time the campaign normally kicked in.”)

In other words, he had no physical limitations that would not allow him to campaign (or do anything else, for that matter). And, remember—I only entered this conversation to correct someone that erroneously posted that “Rudy didn’t run against Hillary because he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had started chemotherapy treatments.”

I guess you would have preferred that myth be perpetuated—sorry to ruin your day.