Isabella Strahan shares cancer update after undergoing painful second craniotomy
Weeks after revealing she had a devastating setback, Isabella Strahan is sharing a major milestone she recently reached as she continues to undergo treatment for cancer.
In her latest vlog, Strahan revealed that she had successfully finished her second round of chemotherapy a week later than expected, due to the second craniotomy she had to undergo earlier this month.
Strahan also talked about how she found a source of comfort during her cancer journey in a fellow athlete who is also undergoing cancer treatment: Greg Brooks Jr. Brooks is a football player for the LSU Tigers who was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Strahan said she and Brooks are on very similar chemo schedules. “We were honestly like two days apart,” Strahan explained.
Back in early March, Strahan detailed the setbacks that resulted in her needing a second craniotomy five months after her first and the painful recovery that followed.
Isabella Strahan was first diagnosed with medulloblastoma in 2023. She’s been fighting the brain cancer ever since.
As Strahan shared in her YouTube video, she was “actually very nervous […] more nervous for this one because it’s not like my brain that they’re messing with I don’t think at all, it’s not as deep… so I’m curious to what recovery would look like. I’m not excited…at all. I’m actually kind of nervous.”
The surgery consisted of her surgeon reopening her original scar to clean it in order to prevent any infections and to replace the bone that was initially cut out of her skull. The recovery process left Strahan in a lot of pain.
“I’m in so much pain…and this sucks. I was in so much pain earlier, I was like screaming,” Strahan said. “This is not fun. Hopefully this is what was causing all my fevers and why I’ve been in the hospital for a week. So hopefully I will get to go home soon after I heal from this. But I don’t feel my best.”
Strahan was hospitalized prior to her second surgery after experiencing “the worst fever I think I’ve had. […] I don’t feel great. I don’t feel horrible. I’ve felt worse but I don’t feel good. I feel like I can barely walk now.”
She said this specific recovery process was painful despite this surgery being “less invasive” than the first. “My face is so puffy, it’s insane. I feel really awful and I was not expecting to come out in this head wrap thing. I’m just in a lot of pain. It sucks. I was way more drugged up for my first surgery because it was more invasive.”
But the 19-year-old model is looking on the bright side of things. She is happy she “can still walk and talk” and that she is glad the doctors didn’t have to touch her brain.
“Doing that again would be really really rough and I don’t think I could do it… I could do it but it would be rough again.”