After being a first-round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings in
1974, Brent Peterson embarked on a successful National Hockey
League playing career that lasted 11 seasons. During his career, he
played for Detroit, the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, and
Hartford Whalers. When he retired as a player, Brent immediately
became an assistant coach with the Whalers before moving back to
Portland, Oregon to become the head coach of the Portland Winter
Hawks of the Western Hockey League. After leading Portland to the
Memorial Cup championship in 1998, Brent wanted to pursue his dream
of becoming a head coach in the NHL, so he left Portland and took
an assistant coaching position with the expansion Nashville
Predators. Brent was later promoted to the position of associate
head coach. Soon after that promotion, things took a turn when
Brent was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative
neurological disorder for which there is no known cure. For a year
Brent and his wife Tami kept Brent's diagnosis a secret, even going
so far as to borrow the money needed for medications so that they
did not have to use Brent's insurance out of fear that the
Predators would find out about his condition. When Brent's symptoms
became more obvious to the people who were around him every day, he
and Tami made the decision to go public with the information that
would likely end any chances of a team hiring him to be their head
coach. Brent made the news public first by telling the Predators
following their elimination from the playoffs in 2004. The team
rallied around the affable coach they call Petey. In addition to
keeping his position as Nashville's associate head coach, Brent
established the Peterson for Parkinson's Foundation in hopes of
raising awareness and funding for research. Away from the ice,
Brent received some counseling from Michael J. Fox, one of
Parkinson's most visible faces. It was that same advice that Brent
turned around and gave to former NBA star Brian Grant after he too
was diagnosed with the same disease. Like Brent, Grant struggled
with the emotional trauma of having been diagnosed with Parkinson's
at such a young age. At Brent's urging, Grant established a
foundation of his own. Early in the 2010-11 NHL season, Brent's
symptoms became more and more difficult to manage. His balance was
affected, making it dangerous for both him and the players to be
out on the ice together. Following Nashville's elimination from the
2011 playoffs, Poile announced that the team had made the decision
that Brent would no longer be a coach. The Predators kept Brent on
staff though, creating the position of hockey operations advisor to
tap into Brent's years of experience in working with the players.
Those same symptoms that made Brent step away from behind the bench
were also affecting his quality of life, and the decision was made
to undergo the radical medical procedure called Deep Brain
Stimulation. DBS is a series of four medical procedures that
involve wires being surgically implanted into the brain and then
connected to a device inside of the patient's chest. That device
sends signals to the brain, and those signals mimic the effects of
the chemical dopamine. The results were nearly instantaneous. The
morning prior to the system being turned on, Brent needed
assistance getting his shoes and socks on before traveling to the
hospital. The next day, he was running on a treadmill at the
Predators' practice facility. DBS is not a cure for Parkinson's,
but it does replicate the effects that medication has on a patient.
Brent still has Parkinson's and probably always will. The symptoms
will reappear at some point and his condition will likely worsen
again, but now he has a renewed outlook on life and a renewed
ability to do the things that drive him; being a good husband,
father, hockey man, and advocate for Parkinson's patients
everywhere.
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