Salt Lake City rock star Tyler Glenn, lead singer and songwriter for the band Neon Trees, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke last week, the musician wrote on his social media accounts.
“I’m quite freaked out, being 36, ostensibly healthy and having this happen,” Glenn said in posts he published Monday on Twitter and Instagram.
“I woke up Thursday foggy and not seeing clearly out of my right eye,” Glenn wrote on his accounts (which have the ironic handle @tylerinacoma). “Something resembling a grayish cloud was obstructing my vision.” Instead of seeing a doctor immediately, he said, “I waited a day to see if it would improve, Googling my symptoms ‘til I spiraled from possibilities.”
Friday, Glenn visited an ophthalmologist, who told the musician he had a retinal edema in a small artery in his right eye. The eye doctor told Glenn that he had a stroke and should go to the hospital immediately.
Glenn was admitted to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray and given “a series of tests, every cardiology and neurological test they could do.” As of Monday, Glenn said he was still waiting for a reason he had a stroke, “although my labs and the results show a clean bill of health in my heart and blood.”
The “cloud” in his right eye remains, Glenn said, and doctors tell him that “could eventually dissipate, or my eyes could adapt.”
Glenn was born and raised in California as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He and a guitarist friend, Chris Allen, started playing music together in 2004 and moved to Provo a year later, forming Neon Trees with bassist Branden Campbell and drummer Elaine Doty (now Elaine Bradley). The band was a favorite in the Provo club scene — the same scene that produced Imagine Dragons and other acts — before going national, opening for The Killers on their 2008 North American tour.
Neon Trees released its first album, “Habits,” in 2010, producing the single “Animal.” The band’s biggest hit, “Everybody Talks,” came out in 2011. The band’s fourth album, “I Can Feel You Forgetting Me,” was released in July.
In 2014, Glenn announced, in Rolling Stone magazine, that he is gay. He later left the Latter-day Saint faith — and in 2016 released a solo album, “Excommunication,” in which he expressed his frustration with the church’s stances against homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
In his posts Monday, Glenn thanked his mom for staying by his side during his hospital stay.
“Hospitals are no fun, and sadly these things can often happen with no warning,” Glenn wrote. He ended with some advice: “If you ever feel or experience something in your body that feels off, please don’t wait to get it checked out. You always assume it can’t happen to you, until it does.”
