No parent is ever fully prepared to watch their child battle a life-threatening disease. Even after hearing the words “cancer-free,” the emotional scars often linger. Likewise, New York Giants legend Michael Strahan’s daughter, Isabella, battled through a form of brain cancer and overcame it in July 2024. Yet, Strahan’s worry hasn’t completely faded as the medical follow-ups made him realize the brutality of what Isa went through.

“I learned that in life sometimes you gotta let go,” said Strahan on Baby, This is Keke Palmer. “You gotta pray, you gotta depend on prayers, you got to trust the doctors or whoever can handle a situation because that’s one of the things completely out of your hands. And the worst part was feeling helpless. I can’t fix this, and it was devastating, very devastating and very scary because you don’t know the outcome, if it’s going to be positive or not.

“You know what you’re hoping for. You know what you’re praying for. And even now she’s, thank God, cancer-free, back at school, crushing it, doing well, loving back to her 21-year-old life. But at the same time, every three months she gets a scan, and you still worry.”

Isabella was diagnosed with Grade 4 medulloblastoma, an aggressive and malignant form of brain cancer where the cells divide rapidly and can quickly infiltrate surrounding brain tissue. In Isabella’s case, the tumor reportedly grew to 4 centimeters (larger than a golf ball) in the span of just a few months.

In October 2023, Michael Strahan and family found out about Isabella’s tumor in her cerebellum after she vomited blood. Shortly after the treatment began, she underwent an emergency five-hour craniotomy at Duke Children’s Hospital to remove the tumor mass. Then, Strahan’s daughter went through six weeks of intense daily radiation therapy targeting her brain and spine.

As a 19-year-old, she was going through several complicated therapies, while all Strahan could do was watch his kid battle it through. In February 2024, she started four cycles of chemotherapy. Amid that, Isabella also underwent two additional brain surgeries to clear a painful fluid buildup and combat high-fever infections.

In June 2024, Isabella finished her final round of chemotherapy. And a month later, her follow-up scans came back completely clean and cancer-free. However, Isabella is still undergoing routine medical checkups and MRI scans every three months to ensure that the cancer does not return.