NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan’s 19-year-old daughter is fighting cancer

By TOM CANAVAN
AP Sports Writer

The 19-year-old daughter of NFL Hall of Famer and “Good Morning America” co-anchor Michael Strahan is undergoing treatment for brain cancer.

Isabella Strahan appeared on a prerecorded videotape segment sitting next to her father while discussing her diagnosis of medulloblastoma, a cancerous brain tumor, with fellow GMA co-anchor Robin Roberts.

The segment was shot at the show’s studios in New York on Wednesday and aired Thursday during the broadcast of the morning news show.

Isabella Strahan said she was diagnosed in October during her freshman year at Southern Cal. She developed headaches that grew progressively worse, dizziness and near the end of the month she woke up bleeding. Within two days, she had emergency surgery to remove a golf-ball sized tumor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. It was followed by four weeks of rehabilitation and several rounds of radiation treatment, which led to hair loss.

“I’m doing good. Not too bad,” Isabella said when asked how she was feeling. “I’m very excited for this whole process to wrap, but you just have to keep living every day.”

The next stage of her recovery will be chemotherapy at Duke University starting next month. Her twin sister, Sophia, attends Duke.

Isabella several times stopped during the interview to wipe tears from her eyes, particularly when she thought about going back to school and restarting that phase of her life.

“I literally think that in a lot of ways, I’m the luckiest man in the world because I got an amazing daughter and I know she’s going through it,” the former New York Giants defensive end and Super Bowl winner said. “But I know that we’re never given more than we can handle and that she is going to crush this as much as I need her. I don’t know what I would do without her.”

Michael Strahan said the one thing he has learned the past few months is that he is not as strong as he thought and he needed support from the people around him to get through this.

Turning to Isabella, Michael Strahan told her he loved her and said she is going to be around pestering people for years to come.

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