Colorado football coach Deion Sanders has been forced to learn a new way of living after having his bladder removed in May.
That includes certain issues involving his job:
“Can I make it through a game?” Sanders asked in a podcast with former Dallas Cowboys teammate Michael Irvin posted Monday, July 28.
While he said he never considered retiring from coaching, Sanders, 57, did think about the ways he’d need to work through his new health situation, which includes incontinence and a smaller, newly constructed bladder.
‘I know I got halftime, but can I make it through a game?” Sanders said to Irvin. “What if there’s a long quarter? OK, so I start thinking I gotta get a Porta Potty for the sideline.”
To get a better sense of what Sanders will face as a college football coach in his recovery from bladder cancer, USA TODAY Sports discussed his situation with medical experts. These doctors are not treating the Pro Football Hall of Famer but described what life is like for a patient in his general situation. It won’t be easy.
“You are heralded as one of the best athletes to play the game, and you peeing on yourself, man,” Sanders said in the podcast.
But there also is reason to believe he won’t be noticeably different on the sideline when Colorado opens the season against Georgia Tech Aug. 29.
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TIMELINE: A look at the recent health issues of Deion Sanders
Deion Sanders has a neobladder: What that means
After Sanders’ cancerous bladder was removed in surgery, a new one was made for him from his small intestine. This is called a neobladder. It’s different from having a catheter emptying urine into an external bag, though patients with new neobladders do use catheters and bags while the neobladder heals, as Sanders did.
A neobladder “has the advantage of not requiring an external appliance, as patients urinate through their native urethra,” said Solomon Woldu, associate professor of urology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Patients with neobladders still cannot urinate in a ‘normal’ way, Woldu said. “Instead patients have to learn to empty their neobladder by using abdominal muscles to generate sufficient pressure on the neobladder to push the urine out. Some patients will not be able to this efficiently and need to catheterize.”
Sanders talked about his with Irvin.
“You have to push through your stomach and force the pee out,” Sanders said. “Like you can’t just pee, and when you feel like you gotta go pee, you need to pee or you gonna start leaking.”
What about portable toilets on the sideline?
Sanders Sr. mentioned that with a sense of humor, but it speaks to the reality of his situation, specifically his loss of control over urination. One way he can deal with it is to wear Depend underwear for incontinence to absorb any leaking. Sanders even has a partnership with Depend and hopes to remove any shame of using it by raising awareness of it.
In the meantime, he’s got newly installed plumbing that doesn’t have the same capacity.
“You make the neobladder, and it’s usually the size of a grapefruit,” said Adam Kibel, the urology department chair at Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts. “Your (normal) bladder when it’s filled is about 2-3 times the size of that. Over time it stretches it out, but what happens is it doesn’t hold that much urine. So it reaches capacity very quickly.”
Can Deion Sanders make it through a game?
A college football game can last four hours, sometimes in warm conditions. He might need water.
That’s where the Depend garments come into play, as well as his halftime break and a possible portable toilet.
“Thank God for Depend,” Sanders said.
Otherwise Sanders has worked on his overall physical stamina since surgery and might not be noticeably different on the sideline this season. He previously had to sit down during a game after leg surgeries to remove blood clots in 2023.
“If he’s 3-6 months out, he should be in pretty good shape,” Kibel said. “If he has incontinence, he can wear a garment.”
Sanders is otherwise physically fit for someone his age and wants to use his situation to motivate others.
“If you’re asking about the average person, I would say yeah, that’s a big lift,” Kibel said. “But my guess is he’s going to do better than the average person.”
Is Deion Sanders using a catheter?
He did after his surgery, but it wasn’t permanent. Sanders said before undergoing surgery he would have a catheter for about two weeks, according to a video posted by his eldest son Deion Jr. July 28. Another video posted by his son July 29 showed him with a tube from his stomach area draining red liquid into a bag. The footage was from May. He also went fishing with his bags at his estate in Texas during his recovery there in May and June.
“I’m just ready to be disconnected from all this so I can resume the normalcy of life,” Sanders said in the video.
Recent videos show him walking around and functioning without being attached to a bag.
“He probably had a catheter in to allow the bladder to drain while it healed up, because you don’t want it filling and stressing the suture line by having it increase in size and decrease in size,” Kibel said.
Has Deion Sanders beaten cancer?
Yes, according to his doctor, Janet Kukreja. He could have chosen to keep his bladder and get regular treatments for it over the next three years, Kukreja said − an option that comes with a 50% chance of recurrence. He chose to have it removed instead, eliminating the malignant tumor that had been discovered in a routine checkup and CT scan earlier this year.
Sanders told Irvin his new bladder is “gonna get a little better” but also said, “This ain’t gonna change.”
Sleeping is a different challenge, he said, which includes putting towels down for any leaking.
“The actual surgery itself is pretty big surgery,” Kibel said. “It’s not a part of your body that’s meant to be removed.”
Cancer forced the issue.
“When we hear that word, it’s normally a life sentence attached to it,” Sanders said. “But not this time.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
(This story has been updated to add new information.)