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Tag: Valerie Harper cancer free

  • Valerie Harper Sued for Cancer Non-Disclosure

    Valerie Harper has had a roller coaster year. Diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer last year and given a fatal diagnosis, the Rhoda star has since received the miraculous news that she is on the mend.

    The producer of Valerie Harper’s former Broadway show Looped is now suing her for $2 million for not revealing that the terminal illness had returned and another $1.5 million in punitive damages.

    According to TMZ, Matthew Lombardo has filed a lawsuit claiming Harper failed to notify them that the cancer had returned, forcing them to have to find a last minute replacement.

    The actress received the diagnosis that she only had months to live in 2012 after she began forgetting lines and slurring words while in rehearsals for the national production of the play.

    When she understandably pulled out of the play, Lombardo had to find a suitable replacement, costing him a reported $500,000.

    The talented actress recently revealed her prognosis has seen a remarkable improvement.

    In a recent Closer Weekly cover, the magazine claimed she was cancer free after being told a year ago she had only months to live.

    A day after the magazine hit the stands, Rhoda star was asked to explain what she meant.

    “I want to thank Closer Weekly for giving me a chance to clarify my story and, more importantly, to address the headline which states that I am cancer free. I am not cancer free,” the actress said.

    “As I have stated on many occasions, I have Leptomeningeal Carcinomatosis (Lepto), lung cancer that has traveled to the meninges around my brain,” she said.

    “While speaking to the reporter for Closer Weekly, I was relaying a story where my doctor had told me that in his 30-year practice, I was the only Lepto patient he has seen without other cancers already present,” she said. “I had just had my yearly full-body scan to determine if this sneaky cancer had migrated to other parts of my body. Therefore, in completing that part of the story, I told the reporter with excitement that I was cancer-free, but what I meant to say was that my full body scan revealed that I was still thankfully cancer free.”

    “What all parties want to be made clear now is that while the Lepto has not spread, I am still not cured. I am a cancer patient, and I continue to fight with the hope that a cure may be just around the corner,” she said.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Valerie Harper Is Not “Cancer Free”, She Says

    Valerie Harper announced last year that she was battling terminal brain cancer, shocking her fans and those who had grown up watching her on television. But even then, she said she was hopeful for the future, as she was beating the odds after being given only a short time to live.

    “I’d say that we’re getting pretty close to a remission,” neuro-oncologist Jeremy Rudnick said on the “Today” show. “It defies the odds.”

    Despite being diagnosed with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis–a rare condition that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane around the brain–74-year old Harper has since been a contestant on “Dancing With The Stars” and accepted a role in the television movie “The Town That Came A Courtin’”, proving that it takes a lot more than a terminal diagnosis to keep her down.

    “[The oncologist] looked at the scans and said, ‘Oh my God, Valerie, this is very encouraging!’” Harper said. “I’m now the poster child for not believing everything I’m told.”

    Harper has clarified a rumor going around that she’s cancer free, saying it came from a misquote in Closer Magazine.

    “I am not ‘absolutely cancer-free.’ I wish I were,” she told the Hallmark Channel. “Right now what I am is cautiously optimistic about my present condition and I have hope for the future…there may come a time when I’m not feeling good. But then again, that time may never come.”‘

    Still, there have been challenges. Harper knew something was wrong last year when she was rehearsing for the Matthew Lombardo play “Looped” and couldn’t remember her lines. The role is one she’d already won a Tony for.

    “She was having problems remembering her lines,” Lombardo said at the time. “We thought, ‘That’s strange. How can she not remember?’ She knew the play inside and out. I wrote it for her. She just didn’t seem like herself.”

    Harper was initially given 3-6 months to live. Now, she’s focusing on taking her medication and taking care of herself. Considering she’s already beaten lung cancer, the diagnosis isn’t one that the actress takes lightly, but it’s not keeping her down, either.

    I take medication once a week, a lot of pills at once, what they call a pulse dose,” she said. “They can be difficult, but I try to sleep them off — I usually lay in bed very quietly to keep them down.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Valerie Harper: Good News From Doctors

    Valerie Harper: Good News From Doctors

    Valerie Harper was pretty much given a death sentence when she was diagnosed with brain cancer a little more than a year ago. She was told at the time that at best she had just months to live. The Rhoda and Mary Tyler Moore Show star grabbed life by the horns and was determined to live whatever she had left of it to the very fullest.

    That’s exactly what Harper did, and now, even though her doctor is hesitant to say she is in remission, they are rather astonished by what they are seeing.

    “My last scans have been positive, and my doctors are very happy,” Valerie Harper said during a recent interview. “[The oncologist] looked at the scans and said, ‘Oh my God, Valerie, this is very encouraging.’”

    So what does her doctor say if he won’t claim she’s in remission?

    “He likes to say, ‘I give you a treatment, and it’s either responsive or nonresponsive, and you are having a phenomenal response,” she explains

    This doesn’t in any way mean she’s been cured of her cancer.

    “In response to a recent erroneous quote concerning my health, I am not ‘absolutely cancer-free,’ ” she said in a statement on Wednesday. “I wish I were. Right now what I am is cautiously optimistic about my present condition and I have hope for the future.”

    A report published in Closer Weekly claimed the actress was cancer free. Excited fans started tweeting the happy news.

    Harper was quick to squelch the inaccurate report, but happy to clarify that even if she wasn’t deemed cancer free, she’s certainly doing much better than doctors ever predicted.

    “My cancer is incurable and terminal, but guess what? Not today!” Harper told PEOPLE on Wednesday. “There is all manner of suffering in the world, not all of it by any stretch related just to cancer or to illness, but all kinds of suffering.”

    She even offered a bit of advice for those who have perhaps been given a ‘death sentence’ similar to the one she was given–more than a year ago.

    “Don’t go to the funeral before it is time. So my time is looking good today and that’s how we are all supposed to live our lives – one day at a time,” she says.

    Valerie Harper inspired fans when she appeared on Dancing With the Stars following her initial diagnosis.

    She will soon appear on The Hallmark Channel in Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

    Cancer free? Maybe not. But Valerie Harper is living one heck of a life just the same. Her amazing outlook sets a wonderful example for all.

    Image via YouTube