The 65-year-old Coburn has been undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Coburn fights cancer again

Sen. Tom Coburn doesn’t seem like a typical cancer patient.

The Oklahoma Republican often arrives in his office two hours before his aides, sometimes as early as 4 a.m. He attends virtually all of his committee hearings. And in the evenings, he either dines with his senator buddies at Capitol Hill establishments or attends his weekly meetings of Christians, conservatives and others at his well-known C Street house.


But for the past several months, the 65-year-old Coburn has privately been undergoing intensive treatment for a recurrence of prostate cancer, a battle that could end up cutting short his second Senate term, which is scheduled to expire in January 2017.

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That the firebrand conservative, known as “Dr. No” for his fierce objections to bills of all stripes, is contemplating his future comes as a shock to many of his colleagues.

“I’m a straight shooter,” Coburn said in an interview this week. “When I get ready to make a decision on what I’m going to do, I’m going to put it out there.”

Coburn is currently undergoing chemotherapy, and he may soon have major surgery that could temporarily — or permanently — sideline him from the Senate. When the results of medical tests return in February, Coburn will have a clearer indication of the additional treatment he needs and whether it will interfere with his Senate work.

Coburn said he believes he’s “plenty healthy enough to serve out my term.” But when asked if anything could change that calculation, the no-nonsense Coburn said wryly: “I can have a heart attack and drop over, but my heart is pretty good.”

He added: “The decision I make will be made in conjunction with my family as to how I can best implement and impact things. And if I don’t think I can, I won’t.”

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For now, Coburn seems intent on serving through the remainder of his term. But Coburn and his closest friends candidly acknowledge that it’s anyone’s guess whether the combative conservative senator will be forced to resign his seat if his health prevents him from maintaining his tenacious schedule.

“We’ve had obviously some conversation about what the results — or what the potential result of his surgery is going to be,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a longtime friend and frequent dining partner. “It’s going to be a major deal. This is not a routine outpatient surgery. Tom is going to have to take that into consideration, and I’m confident he’ll decide the right thing.”

Coburn’s health concerns come at the same time that the senior GOP senator from his state, 79-year-old Jim Inhofe, has recently encountered serious health problems as well as a family tragedy. Inhofe, who was elected in a 1994 special election, underwent quadruple bypass surgery last October — just weeks before his 52-year-old son, Perry, was killed in a plane crash. But Inhofe has since returned to work and plans to run for reelection this fall.

If Coburn were to resign, it would set up a special election this year to fill out the remainder of his term in the deeply conservative state. His future has been the source of growing speculation and private chatter in Oklahoma GOP circles, including the state’s all-Republican House delegation.

But his resignation also would put an end to a colorful career that started when he won a House seat in the GOP wave of 1994 and has been consumed with frequent battles with Democratic and GOP heavyweights, including then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in a conservative-led coup attempt in 1997, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist in 2011 and, repeatedly, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Coburn, an obstetrician, has earned a reputation as a staunch social conservative, pushing anti-abortion measures and placing holds on even noncontroversial bills, and as a fierce fiscal conservative, with frequent battles with appropriators, including the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

But his shoot-by-the-hip style has often put him in hot water. That includes the 2008 episode when Coburn acted as an intermediary and counselor to then-Sen. John Ensign and the aggrieved husband of the Nevada Republican’s mistress during Ensign’s sordid sex scandal, some of which played out at the C Street house, where Coburn and other Christian conservatives live. More recently, Coburn drew a wave of headlines when he told a group of New York Republicans that Reid is an “absolute a—hole.”

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But Coburn’s battles with cancer are just as much of his political narrative as is his unique congressional career. Before announcing in November that he had had a recurrence of prostate cancer, which he first suffered in 2011, he also fought melanoma and colon cancer. He had brain surgery about six years ago as a result of a benign brain tumor.

In the interview this week, Coburn said his current round of chemotherapy is “not near as tough as the other chemo I had.”

Coburn told a reporter: “I’ll be around probably when you’re not. That means I got a good prognosis.”

February is deemed a critical month in the senator’s decision-making process. At that point, he’s expected to see the results of medical tests and analyses of his tumor marker levels, which are used to measure the extent of the disease and will help determine the appropriate treatment. Coburn said the tumor markers will help determine whether he’ll need surgery.

But the surgery, which could require entering the rib cage, is serious enough that he’s already begun to discuss the procedure and the possible ramifications on his Senate career with his family and closest friends. He’s already said he wouldn’t run for reelection in 2016.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), another close friend, said the Oklahoma senator is responding “remarkably well” to the treatment. He said Coburn still joins the group of senators who dine out virtually every night when Congress is in town — a group that occasionally includes House Speaker John Boehner and frequents locales on Capitol Hill’s trendy Barracks Row and H Street neighborhoods.

Asked if he thought Coburn would serve out his term, Burr said: “Could he? Sure. Will he? I don’t know the answer to that.”

Burr added: “Health treatments are a pretty demanding thing, and I think Tom has always been one that gives 100 percent in everything that he does. And if at any point he feels like he can’t give 100 percent to be a representative of Oklahoma, then I’m sure that will have an influence on maybe what he did.”

Coburn told The Oklahoman in November that he received “good assurances” he would survive for another “five or 10 years” unless the treatment isn’t effective. He added that just 1 out of 100,000 prostate-cancer patients suffer from the disease he now has.

In the interview with POLITICO, Coburn boasted that he still feels strong. One day earlier this week, Coburn said, he started at 4 a.m. and ended around 7:30 p.m., longer than many of his staffers who are about half his age.

“My health is good, as far as endurance,” Coburn said. “Probably people should judge my mental health rather than my physical health on why you want to be here.”