The photos are good, what region of the US are you in? Quercus bicolor swamp white oak is a tough tree and well worth the effort, lovely medium sized tree when full grown. Why yours should have lost the top I don't know.
Don't rush into making drastic cuts for a while yet, although it does look like the top has gone by the shoots emerging around the stem below, there is no immediate need to cut anything. If and when you do, don't worry about any paints or sealers they do nothing to help the tree, only the companies that sell them!
Q bicolor is a fast grower in the right regional climate and soils, so it would be a toss up whether you would be better replacing the sapling or retaining it and trying to re-establish the leader to get something like the normal form in the tree when its older.
__________________ Sean  Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
- Kahlil Gibran
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