Actress Valerie Harper is fighting cancer.
According to Today, recent test results show Harper is nearing remission.
"I'd say that we're getting pretty close to a remission," Harper's physician nero-oncologist Dr, Jeremy Runick told Meredith Vierira. "It defies the odds."
However Harper and her husband Tony Cacciotti said she's not cured from the sickness or rare terminal form of cancer, leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, which impacts the membranes surrounding the brain.
Rudnick said the illness can become resistant to the therapy Harper is receiving which means she has more time to live before the cancer re-curs or becomes resistant to Harper's current treatment Today reported.
"It's not a matter of if (the cancer becomes resistant)," Dr. Rudnick said in the interview "it's a matter of when. Life is about buying time."
The couple said they've been tight-knit team through Harper's illness, and consider the blessing of extra time they will have together as key.
"Going from having three months to live, or less; we're into our sixth month, and now there's even hope beyond right now we're looking at...." Cacciotti said.
"We're looking at Christmas!" said Harper.
The interview is part of an hour-long documentary about Harper's battle with the sickness which airs Sept. 19 at 10 p.m. on NBC, and includes Cacciotti and Rudnick.
Harper explains how she has face the cancer through the use of traditional chemotherapy along with acupuncture and chinese tea.
Since the news, Harper has occupied herself with publishing a memoir entitled "I Rhonda" and filming an episode of "Hot in Cleveland" with former co-star Mary Tyler Moore and other cast members from the show. The show airs Sept. 4.
Harper played Rhonda Morgenstern on television shows "Rhoda" and the "Mary Tyler Moore" show Today reported.
