By EILEEN FINAN
After his 15-year career in the NFL, Michael Strahan knows how to take a hit. But the Good Morning America host was left defenseless this past October when he first got the call that his teen daughter Isabella had brain cancer. “You learn you are probably not as strong as you thought you were,” Strahan said of the devastating news. “You think, ‘I’m the athlete, the tough guy, the father in the family.’ I realized that I need support from everybody.”
On Jan. 11 Strahan and Isabella shared in a GMA interview that the 19-year-old had been diagnosed with medulloblastoma and that she’d had a 4-cm. tumor successfully removed from the back of her brain. Medulloblastoma is the most common form of cancerous tumors in children, but only about 400 to 500 cases are diagnosed annually in the U.S., most in younger children (see sidebar). Up to that point the family had kept Isabella’s medical struggle private, with GMA explaining Strahan’s absence from the show in October as a “personal family matter.” “It’s made me change my perspective on so many things in my life,” said Strahan, 52, who shares Isabella and her twin sister Sophia with ex-wife Jean Muggli. (The former New York Giants defensive end also has two older children, Tanita and Michael Jr., from his first marriage.)
Not long after Isabella began her freshman year at the University of Southern California last semester, she started experiencing dizziness, nausea and headaches. “I couldn’t walk straight,” she recalled. At first she thought she had vertigo, but on Oct. 25 she woke up vomiting blood.
An MRI showed a fast-growing tumor the size of a golf ball, and doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles performed surgery Oct. 27, a day before Isabella’s 19th birthday. Hospital staff and family members sang “Happy Birthday” to her as she lay, eyes closed, in her hospital bed, surrounded by pink unicorn balloons and flowers.
Isabella’s doctor told GMA that her tumor was completely removed, and there were no signs the cancer had spread, but after her surgery Isabella still faced six weeks of what’s known as proton radiation. And because radiation and the chemotherapy that follows can affect fertility, Isabella opted to freeze her eggs. “You don’t expect any of this stuff at 18, 19,” Isabella told GMA.
Another shock: The radiation caused Isabella’s thick, curly hair to thin so badly it was “worse than having no hair. I couldn’t even look at myself,” she said in an episode of a YouTube vlog series she’s posting to raise money for the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University, where she’ll undergo chemotherapy. The teen, who scored her first big modeling campaign with Sephora last year, opted to shave her head.
Despite the challenges, “I’m grateful,” Isabella tearfully told GMA. “I’m grateful just to walk or see friends, because when you can’t do something, it really impacts you.” And she says she’s eager to begin her chemo in February: “I’m ready to be one day closer to being over. . . . I’m excited for this whole process to wrap.”
Strahan says he and the rest of Isabella’s family will be with her every step of the way. “She’s going through it, but we’re never given more than we can handle,” he said. “She is going to crush this.”
‘She goes into every day with the best attitude’ — MICHAEL STRAHAN
While medulloblastoma, the form of cancer Isabella Strahan was diagnosed with, is “very serious,” says Dr. Benjamin Cooper, director of proton therapy at NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, “it’s one of the more curable brain tumors.” These tumors arise in the back of the brain, in the cerebellum, which controls balance. After diagnosis through an MRI, treatment includes surgery to fully remove the tumor. Therapy may be needed if there’s difficulty speaking or, as in Isabella’s case, walking. Radiation to treat the whole brain and spine follows, and that can lead to neurocognitive effects later in life, such as memory loss. However, those side effects are “proportional to age,” says Cooper, who has not treated Strahan. “The younger you’re treated, the more severe side effects are because the brain is still developing.” At 19, Isabella would be less susceptible. Patients then undergo intense chemotherapy, usually nine cycles. “It’s a long road—basically a year of treatment,” he says. “It’s a life-altering diagnosis. She’ll be getting MRIs for the rest of her life, but there’s a good chance she will be cured.”
“We’ll make sure she has the love she needs,” says Strahan (with Isabella, right, and Sophia in 2021). Below: Isabella with her mom, Jean Muggli, before a USC football game in October.
TOP: HEIDI GUTMAN/ABC