I have had acupuncture regularly, and I engage in visualization, which is actually an actor's tool, visualizing myself kicking out the cancer, making up scenarios.
I've always done character roles and tons of movies as the so-called star, but I always felt I was one of the team.
Luck is not an acceptable substitute for early detection.
Cancer reminds me of a very bad but tenacious performer who, although no one wants to see, insists on doing an encore, having a return engagement, making a comeback and, worst of all, going on tour.
If I wake up in the night terrified, I try to find a way to not let the fear have me. Every moment you spend in fear of cancer is a moment you've wasted enjoying life. Replace that fear - get in the moment and enjoy it.
I am a cancer patient, and I continue to fight with the hope that a cure may be just around the corner. I am grateful to my family, friends, loved ones, and to fans that I am in their thoughts and prayers. That support gives me great hope.
With imagery, as actors know, you can make up anything you want to. You can put yourself in icy water to get rid of this or that.
Mine's called leptomeningeal carcinomatosis. It's incurable. It's terminal. And it's in a tiny space - a huge area all around the brain and up and down the spine. But it's small area where the spinal fluid is. It's microscopic. You can't see it. It isn't lumps that they can say, 'Oh we can zap that.'
When I heard 'incurable'... incurable is a tough word.
'Incurable' is a tough word. So is 'terminal.'
I was a dancer, but I was always a little overweight. I'd say, 'Hello, I'm Valerie Harper, and I'm overweight.' I'd say it quickly before they could... I always got called chubby. My nose was too wide; my hair was too kinky.
The first Broadway play I ever saw was 'The Bad Seed' by Maxwell Anderson and with Patty McCormack. 'The Bad Seed' was from an extraordinary novel by William March.
It's really important that we don't hang up the membership to the human community at menopause.
I'm a perfect person to tell people not to give up.
I'm now the poster child for not believing everything I'm told.
I never smoked in my life. Neither did my mother. And so many women I meet whose mothers or aunts or whoever who have gotten lung cancer were no-time smokers.
I've had very deep moments of sadness. What I do is really sob, really cry, do whatever it is, and then kind of release it. Then I can go cook dinner or make a phone call to a friend.
I had always wanted a steady job in this business, a show that lasted.
I really got the 'Rhoda' flavor from studying my stepmother, Angela, who's Italian, not Jewish. There's really so little difference between the speech patterns and family attitudes of Jews and Italians in the New York area, anyway.
My stepmother Angela is an Italian from New York City. I based Rhoda on her and a Jewish friend named Penny Ann Green. People often said that Rhoda seemed to be Italian. That was the Angela seeping through.
