On The Mend From Brain Surgery, Sydney Peterson Has School And Skiing On The Mind

Promise Sydney Peterson a mountain, and she is sold on almost any proposition.

Over the past two offseasons, the U.S. Paralympian in Nordic skiing took to the mountains of Montana and Utah to stay in academic and athletic shape. This past December, she finished her undergraduate degree in neuroscience — a major she chose after adapting to dystonia in her left limbs — in the shadows of the Adirondacks at St. Lawrence University.

Now eyeing a PhD, the native of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, is considering schools in her home state while also eying opportunities closer to the Rockies.

“Going back to Utah is definitely high on the list,” said Peterson, referring to her latest summer research fellowship there. “There’s some schools in Minnesota and Colorado that I’d be interested in as well. But we’ll see where things end up.”

At this winter’s halfway mark, thoughts of graduate school have provided a welcome distraction for Peterson during an uncharacteristic break from her academic and athletic endeavors. In addition to graduating from SLU in December, the three-time Paralympic medalist also underwent invasive brain stimulation surgery.

In a December Instagram post, Peterson described the procedure as a “13-hour awake brain surgery.” Her skull was drilled open, and an electrode implanted in her brain.

“The worst headache of my life” and a trip to the emergency room followed. There Peterson had a battery pack implanted in her chest, connecting the electrode via a wire.

“The concept is simultaneously exciting yet terrifying,” she posted.

The former sentiment is holding more sway now, as the operation should reverse the recently worsening effects of her dystonia.

“It was a pretty extensive procedure, so to recover from that will take a while,” Peterson, who turned 22 on Feb. 17, told USParaNordic.org. “But it’s going well.”

Peterson’s recovery kept her home while most of Team USA embarked on a trip to Italy in January and February for the season’s first two world cups. Her recovery continued progressing as planned, and the standing skier reunited with her U.S. teammates for March’s Para Biathlon World Championships & Para Nordic World Cup Finals in Prince George, British Columbia.

Peterson recorded a best-finish of fifth in the world cup's cross-country sprint, where she showed off some of the progress she made during another enriching summer out west.

In 2022, she had taken a research assistant position at Montana State University in Bozeman, conveniently home to Team USA’s training base. She would have welcomed another summer researching and training in Bozeman, but her career goals entail working in translational labs and delivering therapeutics to patients with neurologic conditions, and Montana State lacked related opportunities. So for 2023, she took to another mountain-flanked campus at the University of Utah. There she tirelessly sandwiched her afternoons in an immersive neuroscience program with mornings of running or roller-skiing and evenings of swimming or strength training.

“Hopefully some of this fitness from the summer will translate over,” she said.

It has done that before. Post-Bozeman, Peterson nabbed two bronzes (sprint cross-country, middle-distance cross-country) at the 2023 world championships.

She admitted defending those medals post-surgery was a longshot, especially with biathlon, a relatively new event for her, being the only races contested at world championships. So as with her postgraduate destination, she refrained from committing to concrete goals beyond just seeing action in Prince George.

“Get to the start line and race as fast as I can,” she said.

Recent health setbacks or not, that approach works best for her regardless.

“I definitely ski much more because I love the process of skiing more than the specific results,” she said.

Whether she is rebuilding her contender’s form on the snow or enlightening her future colleagues in the lab, Peterson takes that penchant for process everywhere. Likewise, she carries over her preference for what real-life experiences say over what merely pops up on paper.

Peterson even continues her education when she is with the Para Nordic team and its diverse array of adaptive athletes. The chronicles of Erin Martin and Aaron Pike, in particular, have lent her a valuable human element to talk about at school.

“Seeing teammates who have overcome spinal cord injuries or similar issues has just put things into broader context so that I can better understand something than just reading it in a textbook,” she said. “I’ve definitely had conversations with classmates, and it’s been helpful to look at things and understand how it affects a patient rather than just reading and making up an image in your head.”

Shutting generalities out of her mind is just as well. Peterson has kept her brain busy enough to attain high honors in high school, comparable collegiate marks and now admission to a grad school to be named shortly.

As her academic challenges get loftier and she resumes international skiing, she anticipates the same symbiotic benefits from that familiar student-athlete juggling routine.

“Being an adaptive athlete has made me have to figure out how to problem-solve better because there’s not always a known solution to skiing,” she said. “Some of the problem-solving has come over into school, and I’ve leaned on what I’ve learned in classes to become a better skier.”

Al Daniel is a freelance features writer and contributor to USParaNordic.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc. You can follow him on Twitter @WriterAlDaniel.