'She's a rockstar': Ex NFL star Alex Smith reveals daughter Sloane, 6, underwent 10-hour long brain surgery
The family of former NFL quarterback Alex Smith shared an encouraging update on Saturday, June 25, after Sloane, their six-year-old daughter, underwent emergency brain surgery last month. Sloane, the youngest of Alex and Elizabeth Smith's three children and their only girl child, was sent to Stanford Children's Health on May 10 after displaying stroke-like symptoms, the Smiths revealed in an Instagram post. A massive brain tumor was quickly detected by an MRI, prompting an ‘emergency craniotomy.’
The surgeons were able to completely remove the tumor during a 10-hour treatment that the Smiths dubbed ‘the most excruciating time of our lives.’ Sloane has thankfully recovered totally from surgery more than a month after her treatment. “Sloane—in her true form—bounced back from brain surgery like a rockstar! She didn’t skip a beat,” The Smiths noted that their ‘bubbly’ six-year-old is once again ‘singing, dancing, laughing and feeling good.’
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The Smiths continued by expressing their gratitude to everyone who helped them during this trying period, including the medical staff who carried out the procedure. The family also provided additional information regarding Sloane's tumor and the upcoming steps.
The post reads, “After weeks of waiting on pathology, we learned that Sloane’s tumor is a very rare malignant tumor with very few documented cases—without a clear road map for treatment. We are currently awaiting more tests and gathering as many opinions as we can from doctors across the country to decide the best path forward. We wish this were easy, clear-cut and someone gave us a how-to guide. It’s anything but that.”
The Smith family ended their article by expressing their united tenacity as they faced a difficult path ahead of them. “We know it’s not over and we have a journey ahead of us, but without all of you, we could not have gotten this far. We are sorry if we seem withdrawn. It’s because we are… We have been inundated with doctors' appointments, scans, and labs and trying our best to navigate through this. Most importantly, we’re healing together as a family,” the post remarked.
Meanwhile, resilience is a trait that the Smith family possesses plenty of, as Smith demonstrated throughout his 15-year career. In 2018, the former No 1 pick sustained a terrible injury to his right leg that required 17 operations and almost cost him his life. Smith returned to the field in 2020 after a nearly two-year rehabilitation period, went on to win Comeback Player of the Year, and then announced his retirement in April.