Michael Strahan is reflecting on his daughter Isabella’s cancer journey. Early last year, the 53-year-old’s daughter, then 19, was battling medulloblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer.“She wasn’t eating much,” Strahan recalled to People on Wednesday. “She was thin and tired and bald and all the things you hate to see your kid go through.” But, as he noted, “her spirit was there.
One of the things she said, probably the hardest thing I had to hear was, ‘Dad I’ll do whatever. I want to live.’”“I knew she wouldn’t quit,” the “Good Morning America” co-host continued. “She was going to fight — and she did.”Isabella, whose mom is Strahan’s ex-wife Jean Muggli, underwent several rounds of radiation, chemotherapy and multiple surgeries.
Now at 20, she is cancer-free. Strahan touched on Isabella’s resilience, adding that despite him being a Pro Football Hall of Famer, “I always say she’s a lot stronger than I am.”Isabella first experienced symptoms in fall 2023 as a college freshman at the University of Southern California.
She started having nausea, dizziness and debilitating headaches and confided in her twin sister, Sophia, who was then a freshman at Duke University.“I was the one who told our parents first,” recalled Sophia, “because Isabella called and said she was throwing up blood.”After convincing Isabella to go to the ER, Strahan and Muggli met her there.