Michael Strahan and his daughter Isabella Strahan on Thursday shared publicly her recent brain cancer diagnosis during a segment on “Good Morning America.”
Mr. Strahan, GMA co-anchor, sat alongside his 19-year-old daughter as they discussed her battle with medulloblastoma with Robin Roberts.
Each year, about 500 children are diagnosed with this type of cancer in the United States, accounting for approximately 20 percent of all childhood brain tumors.
‘It Didn’t Feel Real’
In October, Isabella, who was 18 at the time and a college freshman at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, began experiencing severe headaches and other symptoms she attributed to vertigo.
“I didn’t notice anything was off till probably ... like Oct. 1,” Isabella told Ms. Roberts. “That’s when I definitely noticed headaches, nausea, couldn’t walk straight.”
On Oct. 25, she realized things had gotten much worse, so she reached out to her twin sister, Sophia Strahan.
“I woke up, probably at like 1 p.m. I dreaded waking up. But I was throwing up blood,” she said. “I was like, ‘Hm, this probably isn’t good.’ So I texted [her sister], who then notified the whole family.”
At this point, Isabella’s family encouraged her to seek medical attention.
“That was when we decided, ‘You need to really go get a thorough checkup,’” Mr. Strahan said. “And thank goodness for the doctor. I feel like this doctor saved her life.”
Isabella said the doctor conducted a thorough exam and ran several tests in the office but sent her to another facility for an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).
“And then she calls me, and she’s like, ‘You need to head to Cedars-Sinai [Medical Center] right now,” Isabella said. “I’m gonna meet you there.’”
That’s when she learned she had a fast-growing 4-centimeter tumor, about the size of a golf ball, in the back of her brain.
Mr. Strahan, a former NFL Super Bowl champion, said he received the news of Isabella’s cancer diagnosis before his daughter was told.
“I don’t remember much,” Mr. Strahan said. “I just remember trying to figure out how to get to L.A. ASAP. And it just doesn’t feel real.”
The doctors told Mr. Strahan not to risk putting Isabella on a plane to New York.
Road to Recovery
On Oct. 27, one day before Isabella’s 19th birthday, she underwent emergency surgery at Cedars-Sinai to remove the large tumor.The teen doesn’t recall much about the days following her brain operation.
“She was heavily medicated, as you could imagine,” Mr. Strahan said. “But she would have conversations. She had a lot of her friends, and they would come over just to sit with her. And there were times when she was in a lot of pain. She was sleeping a lot.”
Following surgery, the teen had to have physical therapy. She learned to walk again with the help of her sister.
These days, Isabella said that overall, she is “feeling good.”
“I’m feeling good. Not too bad. And I’m very excited for this whole process to wrap. But you just have to keep living every day, I think, through the whole thing,” she said.
On Wednesday, she completed proton radiation treatment.
“So I just finished radiation therapy, which is proton radiation, and I got to ring the bell yesterday,” she said. “It was great. It was very exciting because it’s been a long 30 sessions, six weeks.”
In February, she will begin chemotherapy at Duke Children’s Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. Her sister is a student at Duke University.
Sharing Her Story
Isabella said she had kept her diagnosis private until now. She has partnered with Duke Children’s Hospital and launched a YouTube channel documenting her journey.“It’s been, like, two months of keeping it quiet, which is definitely difficult,” she said. “I don’t wanna hide it anymore because it’s hard to always keep in. I hope to just kind of be a voice and be a person people who may be going through chemotherapy or radiation can look at.”
The first episode dropped on Thursday.
The father and daughter duo agreed this experience has reminded them of what is most important in life.
“You learn that you’re probably not as strong as you thought you were when you have to really think about the real things, and I realized that I need support from everybody,” Mr. Strahan said. “You think that I’m the athlete, the tough guy, you know, I can come and handle it; I’m the father in the family. It is not about any of that. It doesn’t matter. And it’s really made me change my perspective on so many things in my life.”
“Perspective is a big thing,” Isabella said. “I’m grateful. I am grateful just to walk or see friends or do something, ‘cause when you can’t do something, it, like, really impacts you.”
Isabella said she is looking forward to finishing her treatments and returning to school.
“I’m looking forward to getting back to college and moving back to California and just starting my school experience over,” she said. “Not over, but just restarting, being back into a routine and something that’s enjoyable.”
