According to medical doctors, Valerie Harper, a beloved actress known for her roles in popular sitcoms in the 70s and 80s, may have only three months left to live as she has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
Harper is best known for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spinoff, "Rhoda." However, according to People magazine, the Emmy Award-winning actress is staying optimistic. "I don't think of dying. I think of being here now," she told People.
Tests have determined that Harper has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a condition that occurs when cancer spreads to the fluid surrounding the brain. Doctors say she may have been infected with the brain cancer by a cancerous tumor that was discovered on one of her lungs in 2009.
"Most likely this is a recurrence of the lung cancer Valerie Harper battled in 2009,'' said Anders Cohen, chief of neurosurgery and spine surgery at The Brooklyn Hospital Center to USA Today. (He is not involved in her treatment.)
"Cancer has a propensity to spread to other areas of the body, and the brain is the most common destination for disease to spread from its primary location due to its high blood supply - 20% of the body's blood flow goes to the brain, and cancer often spreads through the blood supply. This is a subtype of metastatic disease,'' said the Cohen.
In 2009, the 73-year-old actress told Yahoo! Health, "I'm of the thinking that we're all terminal; no one is getting out of this alive. So you shouldn't start sitting Shiva before it's time. Live the best life you can. Be as healthy as possible."
Since reaching the pinnacle of her acting career in the '70s, Harper has continued to work and most recently appeared on "Desperate Housewives" and on an episode of "The Simpsons" in January.
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