When Isabella first felt severe leg pain in sixth grade, she thought it was a pulled muscle from a recent soccer tournament. A soccer player from age six, Isabella was tiny but tough, and she always popped right back up after getting knocked down.   

But this time was different. Doctors diagnosed Isabella with Ewing sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. “They didn’t think I would ever be able to return to running, to soccer, to sports,” explains Isabella. “That was really heartbreaking.”   

Isabella endured multiple surgeries and a year of chemotherapy. She lost her hair, her appetite, and much of her strength. But she also learned she would receive a wish.   

As she recovered, Isabella thought about her wish. She decided she wanted to go on a Caribbean cruise with her family, but chose to wait until her treatment was complete so she could feel like herself again. So, the wish was scheduled for the summer before she began high school in 2016.  

The wish trip was Isabella’s first time on a cruise—or any big boat. “I was just shocked about how huge it was,” she says of the ship. “It’s like a whole floating city.”  

Isabella remembers the moment they docked in Nassau, where they enjoyed a sunny day in The Bahamas and even went parasailing. “It was a really nice tropical beach vacation as a family,” she reflects. “It also closed out that chapter of my life. Everything with my treatment and cancer was all in the past—I had closure.”    

By the time she started high school, Isabella was back to her old self. “I played varsity soccer and club lacrosse,” Isabella says, proudly. “I was able to fully return to athletics, which was awesome.”  

And she had a new interest too. Hoping to help other kids with critical illnesses, she joined the Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area Youth Board, along with her best friend, whose sister had been a wish kid. “That was a super fun experience for us,” she says. “What I remember most vividly is Brave the Bay [a fundraising event], where we would drive down to the city. We did the polar plunge in the ocean ... We would make a whole day of it.”  

Isabella’s involvement continued in college at the University of San Diego, where she joined the campus Make-A-Wish Club and participated in Dance Marathon, a fundraising event benefiting patients and families at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.  

Inspired by the medical team who saved her life, Isabella is now pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor herself as a first-year medical student at UCSF. “I had such great experiences with the medical professionals who helped me while I was going through treatment,” she says. “My whole inspiration for becoming a doctor is essentially to help people the same way that those doctors helped me.”     

Now that she’s back in the Bay Area, Isabella also hopes to reconnect with Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area. “I would love to get back involved—maybe even as a wish-granting volunteer,” she shares. “It would be such a great way to give back to the Make-A-Wish community.”