91. Rough 72 hours - Apr 11 2026

Wednesday nightaround 1900, I took Owen to the ER. His blood pressure had been high for the past weeks and his speech patterns were not right.

They took Owen into the trauma pod because there were cardiac concerns but they were ruled out after the EKG, x-rays, and labs.

Because we had concerns about his speech, they sent him in for an MRI. His brain was swelling. So, it was then that he was admitted to the ICU. Main goal was to get the swelling down while Owen’s radiology oncologist was summoned. We just saw him a few weeks ago after an MRI. And his doctor said that the speed in which the swelling grew suggests it’s a recurrence of disease. He said that radiation won’t help and that it was time for Owen’s neurosurgeon to take the lead.

Owen was finally in his ICU room at about 0630 Thursday morning. Since this ward has visiting hours that didn’t start until 0800, I was basically kicked out and went home alone. I told Owen that I’d try to get a few hours of sleep and turn right back.

Well… that really didn’t happen. I got a total of 60 minutes of sleep. I gave up and took a shower to then head to the hospital.

Owen had a roommate. Interesting character that was there for something related to his heart. This man wanted nothing more than the worst dietary foods anyone could have for the heart. And he needed everything in the loudest volume. TV, his phone, his uncle that visited. So loud. And so Owen didn’t have much rest either.

I stayed with Owen till I had to get kicked out around 2030.

I had only 1 hour of sleep in the past 44 hours so I did pass out when I got home. But I was up at 0500 to get ready to get my own labs drawn and head to the hospital Friday morning.

The great news was that the docs gave the green light for discharge while I was on the road to the hospital. So I was super excited to be bringing Owen home. But he was probably more excited because he was on serious lockdown at the hospital. They didn’t even let him go pee in the bathroom!

This had Owen in great spirits on Friday!

But he’s now being monitored for glucose and was placed on a healthy heart diet.

This is not making him a happy camper because sugar is his buddy. Pizza and fried foods are a few of his other buddies. And I’m good with cold turkey but he has voiced his objection today.

Although he was ready to be discharged yesterday morning as soon as I got there, I had to run around the hospital to get records for his neurosurgeon who is at another hospital so it took about two hours to get his records, his new glucose device, his meds and his discharge orders.

Owen had great sleep last night. The sleep number rating for the night was 95!

Owen is back in that shell. The shell he crawls into when he doesn’t want to talk to anyone on the phone or by text. He wants me to speak for him. This is rough because this includes family. But as long as he’s talking and not shutting me out, I’ll be his spokesperson until we can get him out of the shell.

Next week will be tough. But I told Owen that his team of docs were assembled for this fight. So we promised each other we are going to fight.