- The freshman shared the devastating news on GMA on Thursday
- She appeared next to her father, who expressed his deep ‘pride’ in her courage
- Isabella was diagnosed after she developed ‘excruciating headaches’
Michael Strahan’s 19-year-old daughter Isabella has candidly revealed she is suffering from a very rare brain cancer – and had to undergo emergency surgery after doctors discovered a tumor bigger than a golf ball at the back of her brain.
The USC freshman appeared with her father on Good Morning America on Thursday morning, with the pair opening up to Robin Roberts about the youngster’s diagnosis.
Up-and-coming model Isabella smiled as she told Robin, “I feel good, not that bad.” I’m really excited that this whole process is over, but you just have to keep living through the whole process every day.”
Michael – who sat next to his daughter as she shared her story – and Isabella revealed that her diagnosis came after she suffered from ‘excruciating headaches’ during her first year at university, when she was just 18.
“I noticed something was wrong since probably September,” Isabella said. ‘Just like on October 1, I clearly noticed a headache and nausea and I could not walk straight.’
Michael Strahan’s 20-year-old daughter Isabella has candidly revealed she is battling brain cancer
Strahan explained that his daughter began experiencing headaches that kept getting worse, prompting them to seek professional help from doctors
The college freshman appeared with her father on Good Morning America on Thursday morning, with the pair opening up to Robin Roberts about the youngster’s diagnosis.
Isabella says she initially mistook her symptoms for dizziness, explaining that she looked that up online and associated it with walking straight ahead.
Michael confessed that when his daughter shared her symptoms with him, he never considered that it could be an indication that she was battling cancer, especially since she was only 18 and so “young, strong and healthy.”
“You know, (she was) 18 years old at the time, you don’t think this,” he said. “Maybe it’s dizziness, maybe it’s something else. But she is young, strong and healthy.
“Look at her, she looks great.”
However, on October 25, Isabella’s condition took a serious turn for the worse, with the teen revealing that she started vomiting blood.
“I probably woke up around 1 p.m.,” she recalled. “I was afraid to wake up, but I was vomiting blood.”
Isabella joked that she thought: ‘This is probably not good’ and revealed that she texted her sister to tell her what was going on – and then ‘informed the whole family’.
At that point, Michael said the family decided Isabella “really needed to get a thorough checkup” with a doctor, adding, “Thank God for the doctor… I feel like the doctor saved her life.”
Isabella says she realized something was seriously wrong after she started vomiting blood – and shortly afterwards learned she had developed a ‘fast-growing 4cm tumor in the back of her brain’.
Isabella said the doctor “did an EKG and other things” before sending her to another facility for an MRI.
“So I went to get the MRI somewhere else and then she called me and said, ‘You need to go to Cedars-Sinai right now, I’ll see you there,'” she recalled — explaining that the doctor at the time did not give her other information about her diagnosis.
Once at the hospital, Isabella was told she had developed a “fast-growing 4cm tumor at the back of her brain” that required emergency surgery.