Valerie Harper, Fighting Cancer, ‘Defies The Odds’
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Leslie Nestor Miranda/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — Valerie Harper said that doctors gave her months to live following her terminal brain cancer diagnosis. Now the actress’ doctor says she’s turning a corner.
Dr. Jeremy Rudnick said Thursday on Today that the Mary Tyler Moore Show star is “getting pretty close to remission.”
Harper has been undergoing chemotherapy as well as alternative treatments like acupuncture.
“It defies the odds,” Dr. Rudnick said of 74-year-old Harper’s response to the treatments, but he cautioned that Harper eventually will “develop resistance to the therapy.”
“It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” he said, adding, “Going from having three months to live, or less; we’re into our sixth month, and now there’s even hope beyond…Life is about buying time.”
Harper recently began production on a cable TV movie, The Town That Came A-Courtin’. She’ll also join her Mary Tyler Moore Show co-stars Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White, Cloris Leachman and Georgia Engel in an episode of White’s TV Land comedy, Hot in Cleveland, which will air next Wednesday.
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