Valerie Harper, the actress of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" has been given just three to six months to live after she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer earlier this year, according to ABC News.
Valerie Harper, 74, has already surpassed medical expectations and has showed striking improvement in her condition on a recent scan.
"I'd say that we're getting pretty close to a remission. It defies the odds," her doctor, neuro-oncologist Jeremy Rudnick, said in a taped segment on Thursday's Today show.
But Rudnick explained, "The problem is that at any time this can change." The cancer can "develop resistance to the therapy" and it's "not a matter of if . . . it's a matter of when."
"So is it about buying time in the hopes that something better comes?" Vieira asked.
"Life is about buying time," Rudnick replied. "Exactly," Harper agreed. "That's what I always say."
The actress famous for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on the hit '70s show and subsequent spin off invited NBC's Meredith Vieira along on her doctor visits, for a televised special on her daily life and battle with the rare brain cancer.
"I just want to live every moment to the fullest," Harper tells Vieira in the interview, which airs Sept. 19.
"Spontaneous remission lives as a possibility ... I think infinite possibility is beautiful in every area. A lot of stuff that looks impossible is not, and every day there's evidence of it."
