Michael Strahan and his 19-year-old daughter Isabella appeared on a segment of Good Morning America where they revealed Isabella’s brain cancer diagnosis. The college student and her father opened up about her diagnosis with medulloblastoma, a common malignant tumor that arises in the cerebellum, a part of the brain located at the base of the skull. She learned about her condition in late October and underwent emergency surgery on October 27th, just a day before her 19th birthday. “I’m feeling good. Not too bad,” said Isabella, who will start chemotherapy at Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center in Durham, North Carolina, next month. “That’s my next step. I’m ready for it to start and be one day closer to being over. …. 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.”

.@MichaelStrahan‘s daughter Isabella opens up about her brain tumor battle, with Michael telling @RobinRoberts: “I know she’s going through it, but I know that we’re never given more than we can handle and that she is going to crush this.” https://t.co/zZJMG7h8OV pic.twitter.com/3GJE4O4jHj

— Good Morning America (@GMA) January 11, 2024

“I literally think that, in a lot of ways, I’m the luckiest man in the world, because I’ve got an amazing daughter,” Michael, 52, said in the interview with his fellow GMAco-anchor Robin Roberts. “I know she’s going through it, but I know that we’re never given more than we can handle and that she is going to crush this.” Isabella is one of Strahan’s four children. The former NFL player has two children, Tanita, 32, and Michael Jr., 29, with his first wife, Wanda Hutchins. Isabella and her twin sister Sophia are from Strahan’s second marriage to Jean Muggli.

In the interview, Isabella shared that she initially shrugged off the initial symptoms of her brain tumor while she was attending her freshman year of college at the University of Southern California.  “I didn’t notice anything was off ’til probably like Oct. 1,” she said. “That’s when I definitely noticed headaches, nausea, couldn’t walk straight.” She shrugged it off as vertigo until she woke up in the early hours of October 25th “throwing up blood.” That was when she decided to get a thorough check-up, where they found the brain tumor.

Isabella described the experience saying the experience has given her a new outlook on life. “Perspective is a big thing,” she said. “I’m grateful. I am grateful just to walk or see friends or do something, ’cause when you can’t do something, it really impacts you.”