Colorado football coach Deion Sanders said he will undergo surgery Friday after blood clots recently were discovered in the thighs of each of his legs.
The news comes after he developed blood clots in 2021 that led to the amputation of two toes on his left foot.
He since has developed problems with other toes on that same foot and said on a video posted Thursday that the procedure on Friday is “to try to get those clots so now I can have proper blood flow to the leg so they can fix the toes.”
Sanders, 55, indicated he learned of the new blood clots in a recent visit to the doctor. In another consultation with doctors last week, Sanders had been told his blood circulation had worsened to the point where the blood pressure near his ankle had only 66% of the blood pressure of his arm. One doctor told him then he risked amputation of that foot.
But Sanders downplayed that Thursday in the video posted on the YouTube channel of his son Deion Jr.
He said there is “no talk of amputation.”
“The doctor was just telling me if worse comes to worst, this was going to happen, but I believe in staying right so we never have to take that left,” Sanders said.
What’s his outlook?
The formerly fleet-footed Pro Football Hall of Famer has been hobbled by foot problems since 2021, when he had several surgeries to repair a toe dislocation, an inflamed nerve and then blood clots. He missed three games that season as coach of Jackson State before returning to the sidelines in a wheelchair.
Less than two years later, Sanders in the video Thursday that two of the remaining three toes on his left foot are hammertoes, which are abnormally bent. He said the surgery Friday could be followed by other procedures to “straighten out” his toes and foot.
“I’m not receiving enough blood flow in order to do that surgery and another surgery to fix the dislocation of the foot as well,” he said.
He still walks with a limp and has tried remedies to relieve his discomfort, saying he no longer has feeling on the bottom of his left foot.
He laughed about one proposed remedy in particular, saying somebody offered him a way in which “all my toes would grow back.” He currently only has eight after the big toe and adjacent toe were amputated in 2021.
“Now I can finally move forward and get this stuff fixed,” Sanders said in the video. “So I’m having surgery tomorrow. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your support. And you’ve got to understand: I ain’t going nowhere because we coming.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
