Through his daughter Isabella’s darkest days, after her brain tumor was removed and she was receiving another round of chemotherapy, Michael Strahan continued searching “to find the silver lining somewhere,” he recalls, “some light at the end of the tunnel.”
Isabella, 19, was facing medulloblastoma, a severe brain cancer, in early 2024. “She wasn’t eating much,” Michael explains. “She was thin, tired, and bald—and all the things you hate to see your kid go through.” Still, he says, “Her spirit was present. One of the toughest things I had to hear was, ‘Dad, I’ll do whatever you want.” I want to live.
“I knew she wouldn’t quit,” says the 53-year-old Good Morning America co-anchor. “She was going to fight—and she did.”
Isabella, 20, is cancer-free after undergoing many rounds of radiation, harsh chemotherapy, and several surgeries. The Strahan family tells the tale of her fight in this week’s PEOPLE, ahead of a forthcoming ABC special. Life Interrupted: Isabella Strahan’s Fight to Beat Cancer will show on Disney+ and Hulu on February 5 at 10 p.m. and again the following day, February 6. Michael, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, admits, “I always say she’s a lot stronger than I am.”
Isabella began feeling nausea, dizziness, and excruciating migraines in the fall of 2023, just as she started school at the University of Southern California. She confided in her twin sister, Sophia, who was then a freshman at Duke University. “I was the one who told our parents (Michael and former wife, Jean Muggli) first,” Sophia recalls, “because Isabella called and said she was throwing up blood.”
Sophia encouraged Isabella to visit the ER, where her family welcomed her. “They dropped everything,” Isabella says. Doctors revealed that she had a rapidly developing tumor in her cerebellum, which governs balance and coordination. Michael says, “They told me there was no need for a second opinion. We should just walk inside.”
Isabella underwent brain surgery the next day, on October 28, her 19th birthday, to remove the 4-centimeter tumor. According to Dr. David Ashley, a neuro-oncologist at Duke Children’s Hospital in North Carolina, “It was somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball.”
Isabella spent the following eight months in and out of the hospital, with two follow-up procedures to remove an infection from the surgery site and replace a portion of her skull with a titanium mesh plate. “That was the first time I saw her cry,” Michael explains.
Her relatives and friends rallied behind her. “My mom would sleep in the hospital with me,” Isabella recalls. According to her mother, Jean Muggli, “Isabella’s tenacity and resilience were the same as when she was a tiny kid. The way she handled each day with elegance was incredible.”
Isabella had to relearn how to eat, speak, and walk, sometimes with Sophia pushing her wheelchair. “She would tell me, ‘I just want to feel normal.'” “Nothing in my life is normal,” Sophia recalls. Sophia attempted to assist her in accomplishing her goal. “Even though,” she elaborates, “nothing she went through was a normal experience.”
In a series of YouTube vlogs, Isabella recounted her experiences in real-time to connect with other cancer survivors, particularly those her age. She gave the YouTube revenues to the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University, where she got treatment.
Isabella is now back at USC, studying in communication. She’ll get scans every three months for the next two or three years, then every six months or a year thereafter.
“Her doctors feel very confident she’s going to be fine,” according to Michael. “We’ll cling to that, but you’re always filled with fear.” That will never go away, but as long as the results are favorable, we will be able to fight another day.”
“Obviously, you can’t predict what will happen, and that’s a little scary,” Isabella muses. “But I don’t believe you can live purely in dread. I believe I should live each day. Seize every chance. I see the impact of sharing my experience. “I want to be a voice.”