Detroit Red Wings forward Johan Franzen has not dressed for a game since October, 2015 due to post-concussion syndrome.
The 38-year-old is a veteran of 602 career contests, all with the Red Wings, and has said he sustained at least four head injuries during his career.
Franzen's wife, Cissi, detailed the struggles he has been dealing with in a blog post on Sunday titled "An emotional week."
"I don’t know where to start, but this week has been really hard and extremely emotional. Monday morning the kids, Lisa and I flew out to Denver, Colorado to visit Johan," Cissi wrote on Franzen Residence.com. "He’s been going thru an intensive treatment program at Marcus Brain Health Institute, and this last week was a family week where I joined in for a lot of sessions. He’s still dealing with post-concussion syndrome, and the last months have been really bad. Something needed to happen and I’m so thankful we found this new amazing place. It opened up in March and they treat vetarans and athletes with brain traumas. Johan was actually their very first athlete.
"First day when we came was a great day, so nice to see each other again. Second day – terrible and we got in to a huge fight. Probably normal in most relationships, but when you have an brain injury it adds up, and it becomes SO not rational. The brain just can’t paus [sic] and take a break when it’s overloaded and can’t recover. He bounced back to a very dark and sad place. However, I’m glad it happened while we were there. The amazing top of the line team at ‘The Marcus’, handled the situation so professionally, they rescheduled his and my schedule completely the day after to treat him as best as they could. You could feel how they all genuinely cared for Johan, and also me.