Owen's positivity proves an asset in lengthy leukemia fight

Owen had just started his sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse in the fall of 2023 when his health started to go sideways. It began with intense leg pain caused by blood clotting. Soon the pain moved to his back and eventually permeated most of his body. There were also persistent night sweats.

When he should have been having the time of his life in college, Owen was struggling to walk and feel well enough to attend classes. One day, when he tried coming back after a period of absence, his English professor, William Stobb, sensed something was not right with Owen.

“I had been out sick a while but the cancer still had not been caught yet,” Owen says. “When I asked Professor Stobb what I missed, the pain in my leg was throbbing. I started to shed some tears in front of him and he kind of consoled me.”

Stobb suspected that Owen needed a higher level of medical care.

“I think Owen was beginning to realize there was something seriously wrong, physically, and he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it. I encouraged him to get it checked out,” Stobb says.

Physicians at Gundersen Health in La Crosse diagnosed Owen with leukemia. His particular form of the disease — chronic myeloid leukemia with a B-cell acute lymphoblastic blast crisis — is quite rare in young people and is as scary as its name sounds. Think of bone marrow — the soft, spongy tissue inside the center of our bones — as the body’s blood cell factory. Owen became very sick once immature white blood cells started to rapidly grow in his bone marrow, crowding out his healthy red blood cells and platelets.

Bone marrow transplant needed

Conventional treatment, such as chemotherapy, will not be enough for Owen. He will also need a bone marrow transplant, a procedure that wipes out the body’s immune system and creates a new one by infusing the patient with new bone marrow provided by a donor — ideally a sibling with the same blood type. Tests determined Owen’s younger sister Lydia is a perfect match and the transplant is likely to happen in the spring of 2025.

Bone marrow transplants are only performed at major medical centers, so Owen and his girlfriend Nikki Caya moved from La Crosse to Madison to be closer to the American Family Children’s Hospital and to Nikki’s family who live in the nearby suburb of McFarland. Owen learned of his cancer diagnosis just seven months into dating Nikki, but she didn’t hesitate about staying. Nikki was all in with Owen.

“It was overwhelming, but I knew I wasn’t going anywhere,” she says.

Neither were Nikki’s parents, Teri and John Caya, who embraced Owen as if he was part of their family.

Owen was admitted to American Family Children’s Hospital in April 2024. He initially thought his stay might be a few weeks but he kept getting sicker, eventually spending 111 days there. For part of his stay, his disease confounded not only his UW Health care team but other childhood cancer experts around the nation who were consulted.

A 'biblical' fever

"I can’t overstate how rare Owen’s case was," says Dr. Cathy Lee-Miller, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist. "His temperature hovered around 103 or 104 degrees for 40 days. We called it a 'biblical fever.'"

A fever is typically the result of infection yet every test doctors performed failed to pinpoint the source.

"He was miserable for days on end with no explanation," adds Dr. Allison Weisnicht, a pediatric hematology-oncology fellow who works with Dr. Lee-Miller.

Doctors eventually suspected Owen was suffering from a condition called HLH, which causes the immune system to attack the body itself rather than an invading virus. They treated him with steroids and Owen’s 40-day fever finally broke.

Normally an optimistic person, Owen’s will was repeatedly tested during his lengthy hospitalization. He never gave up, even during his darkest days. Neither did Nikki, who spent many nights sleeping in Owen’s hospital room.

“Everyone was always doing whatever they could to make sure we were comfortable and happy,” Owen says. “It can be very isolating being stuck in a hospital room for nearly four months, but we genuinely felt secure and taken care of. We never really felt left out to dry.”

When Nikki needed a break, Owen’s sister, Emma McGuire, was there time and again to step in — even with her 4 ½-hour commute from the Minneapolis area.

“Owen has always been my little buddy,” Emma says. “I’m the oldest of eight, so I spent a lot of time looking out for him when we were younger. It was overwhelming with everything Owen was going through, but I knew this was just something I was going to do.”

Despite all he has been through, Owen knows another big hurdle lies ahead once he undergoes bone marrow transplant, a procedure that will hospitalize him for four-to-six weeks.

“Your immune system is drastically weakened, and it usually takes about a year to regain full strength,” says Dr. Lee-Miller.

Owen will have the help of medications during the recovery but will need to be careful, avoiding contact with sick people.

Recovery fueled by creative energy

Since childhood, Owen has always had a gift for creativity. Photography and video production have been an important part of his healing journey. He was recently invited to put together a heartwarming video montage of children’s hospital patients, which was shown before an audience of more than 900 people at the 2025 Friends of UW Health Gala. The event helped raise $737,000 for American Family Children’s Hospital.

“It was so cool seeing everyone watch the video so intently,” Owen says. “It was probably my favorite night of all time and it was great having Nikki, her family and my family all there.”

Like everyone who meets Owen, Dr. Lee-Miller was moved by his relentless upbeat outlook.

“Owen is a remarkable young man who has been dealt a pretty rough hand,” she says. “You wouldn’t blame him for being angry at the world, but he just sees the positive and doesn’t complain. He’s the kind of kid you want your child to be. He is truly a light.”