The ultimate save! Shaka Hislop’s breaking the stigma of prostate cancer

Cherisse Moe

On June 10, Sha­ka His­lop and his wife, De­sha, cel­e­brat­ed 31 years of mar­riage. They marked the mile­stone oc­ca­sion by tak­ing pic­tures in their orig­i­nal wed­ding at­tire from three decades ago, right in their back­yard. “I can’t tell you how hard we laughed,” Sha­ka said. Those pho­tos meant even more for the leg­endary for­mer na­tion­al World Cup goal­keep­er af­ter what he’d been through. Just two years ear­li­er, a prostate can­cer di­ag­no­sis had com­plete­ly blind­sided him and his en­tire fam­i­ly.

‘I’m in for a fight’

Sha­ka spent his life at the peak of phys­i­cal fit­ness, guard­ing the nets for Eng­lish Pre­mier League clubs like West Ham and New­cas­tle and an­chor­ing the So­ca War­riors’ his­toric 2006 World Cup run. Good health for the ES­PN an­a­lyst was sim­ply a giv­en. What made it even hard­er to be­lieve? He had ze­ro fam­i­ly his­to­ry of the con­di­tion, con­firmed by ge­net­ic test­ing.

His first thought when a med­ical screen­ing in ear­ly 2024 showed he had can­cer was “‘I’m in for a fight; put on your gloves now, let’s go!’ I had to do what­ev­er was need­ed for me to bat­tle the dis­ease and that was my whole mind­set,” he told WE Life and Cul­ture in his first news­pa­per in­ter­view dis­cussing his or­deal.

A rou­tine blood test back in April 2024 dur­ing a full med­ical check-up point­ed to an in­crease in his prostate-spe­cif­ic anti­gen (PSA) lev­els. He re­called, “It had been creep­ing up very slight­ly over the years, but it was al­ways in the nor­mal range, and is a nor­mal part of age­ing. There was a spike be­tween 2023 and 2024. I saw a urol­o­gist and lat­er got an MRI. When I got to see my urol­o­gist again in Ju­ly, it showed a high pos­si­bil­i­ty that there was can­cer in my prostate. I had a biop­sy in No­vem­ber and it re­vealed it was can­cer, fair­ly ag­gres­sive, with a Glea­son score of nine.”

On De­cem­ber 6, 2024, Sha­ka un­der­went a rad­i­cal prosta­te­c­to­my. Just six months lat­er, fol­low-up scans con­firmed the can­cer had al­ready spread to his pelvic bone and one lymph node. “I was on med­ica­tion to sup­press my testos­terone since can­cer feeds off testos­terone. And I start­ed sev­en and a half weeks of ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py.”

The strength

to be vul­ner­a­ble

One of Sha­ka’s biggest bat­tles was break­ing the news to his fam­i­ly. While he im­me­di­ate­ly told his wife, as a fa­ther of five, he strug­gled with how to tell his chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly since his fa­ther-in-law died of the dis­ease. He al­so wor­ried about the im­pact the di­ag­no­sis would have on his mom, say­ing, “That for me was one of the tough­est things I had to do.”

But Sha­ka, who pub­licly shared his sto­ry with fans via In­sta­gram in June 2025, was re­mind­ed he was not in the fight alone. His house­hold ral­lied around him, shoul­der­ing the load and go­ing through the ex­haust­ing process to­geth­er.

An ath­lete used to push­ing his body to its phys­i­cal lim­its, his re­cov­ery meant learn­ing a new kind of men­tal strength, slow­ing down, em­brac­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, lean­ing on his in­ner cir­cle, and al­low­ing him­self the grace to heal.

“I was back to work a month af­ter surgery. I didn’t want it to af­fect any oth­er as­pect of my life,” he told us. “But I didn’t get back to the gym till six months af­ter surgery as in­struct­ed. It wasn’t easy. To be hon­est, I had more down days than I would’ve thought. I had to deal with the fact that there was fur­ther to go on this jour­ney. I al­so have to re­main on med­ica­tion for an­oth­er three years and I am pret­ty dis­ci­plined about that. For in­stance, I don’t drink any­more be­cause it af­fects the ef­fi­ca­cy of the drugs.”

To­day, Sha­ka is look­ing well and feel­ing bet­ter. He has re­claimed his health, his body, and his fu­ture. The ex­pe­ri­ence has re­mind­ed him that the qui­et, un­script­ed mo­ments with the peo­ple he loves are what mat­ter most.

Break­ing the stig­ma

With June mark­ing Can­cer Sur­vivors Aware­ness Month, Sha­ka con­tin­ues to be com­plete­ly trans­par­ent about his jour­ney for one crit­i­cal rea­son: to keep oth­er men alive.

Many Caribbean men still stub­born­ly re­sist med­ical screen­ings out of fear, stig­ma, or a false sense of in­vin­ci­bil­i­ty. Ac­cord­ing to the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA), the re­gion car­ries one of the high­est prostate can­cer mor­tal­i­ty rates glob­al­ly. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, prostate can­cer is the lead­ing on­co­log­i­cal killer among men, ac­count­ing for 35.1 per cent of all can­cer deaths. Fur­ther­more, a joint land­mark study by CARPHA and the Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) shows can­cer death rates in the Caribbean are two to nine times high­er than in the Unit­ed States, a dis­par­i­ty dri­ven heav­i­ly by late de­tec­tion.

“Prostate can­cer is sur­viv­able if caught ear­ly enough. Whether it’s hered­i­tary or not doesn’t mat­ter,” said Sha­ka, a man who knows bet­ter than most that the right ac­tion at the right mo­ment can change every­thing. “You must in­sist on get­ting checked. Go get test­ed, know your PSA, and track its his­to­ry. Test­ing saves lives. It saved mine.”

What Every Man Needs to Know

The Warn­ing Signs

Ear­ly prostate can­cer of­ten has ze­ro phys­i­cal symp­toms, which is why reg­u­lar screen­ing is crit­i­cal. How­ev­er, see a doc­tor im­me­di­ate­ly if you ex­pe­ri­ence:

• Dif­fi­cul­ty start­ing uri­na­tion or a weak, in­ter­rupt­ed flow.

• A fre­quent urge to uri­nate, es­pe­cial­ly at night.

• Pain or burn­ing dur­ing uri­na­tion.

• Blood in the urine or se­men.

• Per­sis­tent pain in the back, hips, or pelvis.

Un­der­stand­ing Your PSA Base­line

A Prostate-Spe­cif­ic Anti­gen blood test mea­sures the pro­tein lev­els pro­duced by the prostate.

• The Base­line: For most men, a PSA lev­el be­low 4.0 ng/mL is con­sid­ered nor­mal, though lev­els nat­u­ral­ly creep up slight­ly with age.

• The Ve­loc­i­ty: A sud­den spike or a con­tin­u­ous up­ward trend over time, even if the num­bers re­main with­in the “nor­mal” range, is a crit­i­cal warn­ing sign that re­quires an im­me­di­ate urol­o­gist con­sul­ta­tion or an MRI.