55 days before his cancer admission, Deion Sanders offered a hint about his illness to former NFL CB Asante Samuel. Deion was on Asante’s podcast, Say What Needs to Be Said, where he revealed that he was dealing with an “illness” and had lost a lot of weight.
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Since then, Deion has been absent from the Colorado football team’s practice for about two months. This sparked genuine concerns about his health condition. Later on, Coach Prime addressed the fear this week in a press conference, where he admitted he had his bladder removed in a surgery due to cancer. The presser also saw Deion and the doctors speaking in detail about how he survived the bladder cancer and kept it a secret even from his family.
After the announcement, Deion once again made a return to Asante’s podcast. And fittingly, he started the conversation with an apology for not revealing his condition earlier. However, Deion also had a personal reason for not revealing the same.
“First of all, let me apologize to you because I couldn’t tell you everything. We talked, but I tried to lead you down the road so you knew some things. It was difficult. It was so funny because the last time we spoke, I kept looking at the screen like, ‘Good Lord, he can’t see it all. I lost about 20 pounds. I’m still down. I’m gonna get it back though,’” Deion admitted.
Deion looked tired, and his voice was breaking several times during that podcast. But Asante couldn’t realize much because “he was caught up in the moment.” Deion replied, “It was hell down there,” referring to his cancer battle.
Speaking further, Deion added that he continues to get questions from family members on why he did not inform them about the medical condition. For instance, it was the in-home nurse who told Deiondra Sanders about Prime’s health, and that too after the surgery.
Deion did the same with his youngest daughter, Shelomi, who visited him at the hospital and the Texas home but had no clue about his condition.
“It was rough, my brother. You know, it was so funny. To this point, my daughter just called me, Shelomi, who is playing basketball. HBCU. She just called me. She’s like, ‘Daddy, why didn’t you tell me?’ She actually came to the hospital and came by the house a couple of times and saw me. But she still didn’t know because we told her it was something about my foot,” Deion added.
Even though Prime did not inform his family, it was done as a personal gesture. He wanted to keep them unworried and deal the issue on his own. And now, with his return, Coach Prime is able to bring more positive energy to his family and the Colorado Buffaloes team.
