Fans of Deion Sanders were concerned for months after pictures of him in the hospital went viral. The images show a thin Sanders in a hospital bed with girlfriend Tracy Edmonds at his side. Fans expressed their concerns in the image’s comments, where a smiling Sanders seems to be trying to reassure everyone that everything will be ok despite not detailing what he was dealing with. Let’s take a look back at the picture while we uncover what Sanders has been suffering through.
In the November post, Deion focused on his love for Tracy in the caption and how she has stood by his side during this ordeal instead of telling fans what was going on. He cautioned fans to be careful when choosing a partner, letting them know that they should make sure their person is someone who will stick beside them during these types of times. He called Tracy a true ride-or-die chick with class and intelligence and professed his love for her. Many fans jumped in the comments to express their love for the couple and hopes that they will soon wed. Other fans made their concerns clear and wondered why was Deion sick in the first place?
In the photo, Deion is pointing his hand up towards the ceiling while Tracy holds up a thumbs-up sign. Fans noticed that he looked skinny and began to speculate that he may be dealing with something truly life-threatening. It had been reported he was dealing with a foot injury, but everyone felt like he looked worst than a foot injury. “Thought he had cancer the way he looking smh,” said one fan while another claimed, “Foot idk about that look a lil more serious.” Many felt it was more serious, saying, “Look like bro was dying, just the foot?”
In the time since the post, Sanders has opened up about how serious the injury was. He said that he had nine total surgeries that left his left leg severely reshaped around the lower calf region. The injury all stemmed from an untreated dislocated toe from his days on the field. Because of all the surgeries and all his time in the hospital, Sanders lost 35 pounds, which is why he appeared so frail.
The Jackson State head coach told MSN: “It was bad, it was really bad. It got really, really bad. Lost a lot of blood as well. I don’t think I was awake but for maybe couple hours a day at a time. I didn’t eat anything for like weeks. I lost 35 pounds, was the size I was in high school.”
Over on his IG, Sanders shared some graphic images of the work he got done and opened up about how the surgery changed his life.” told y’all we were gonna show it all in this documentary, and that’s what this is. I got to warn ya This ain’t a pretty sight! I may have lost a couple soldiers in the battle, but I never lost my faith in God!” he said in the caption. In the video, you can see that he had several toes removed. The episode of his series, Coach Prime, would focus solely on his journey and the things we went through while trying to recover. He issued a trigger warning and held nothing back as we see doctors working on him.
Deion revealed that even post-surgery, he had some complications stemming from withdrawals to the medications they gave him during recovery. Sanders claims he’s never done drugs or drank his entire life but completely understood how people get hooked on painkillers. He struggled most in the evenings because the pain was so unbearable at night. Deion also says it was hard for him to get used to someone helping him in and out of bed, as well as assisting him in using the bathroom.
Fans have begun to revisit the initial image of Sanders and Tracy now that they have more information on his condition. Many are happy to hear he is doing better and recall thinking he was going to lose his life. “Oh man, I had heard he was sick, but they had never said what was wrong xx wishing him a speedy recovery.. aging is for the weak 😢” said one fan. Claudia Jordan commented on the trailer for Coach Prime saying, “Omg @deionsanders ! You have been dealing with so much pain! Thank you for sharing, and your know we over here praying for you!!!” Another fan said, “Wow! You never know what people are going through. God bless you, Coach Prime 🙏🏾🙌🏾” Are you surprised to find out how bad things were for Deion Sanders?
