Erik Gelhar is a new father. He and his wife, Jenn, welcomed baby Sophie into the world on Oct. 29. A year earlier, on Oct. 27, 2013, he received another gift of life — a new heart.
At home in Everett on Wednesday, Gelhar, 30, briefly lifted his shirt to show a long, pink scar down the middle of his chest. It will be a lifelong reminder of his heart transplant, performed at the University of Washington Medical Center.
In 2007, Gelhar was diagnosed with a type of cardiomyopathy, which meant progressive heart failure.
Living in his native Bellingham, he was working aboard ships as a junior engineer. At 22, he had just met Jenn Johansen, an Everett High School graduate who was finishing her degree at Western Washington University.
Strong and active, he had been a hiker and skier. That all changed when Gelhar developed a cough and had trouble breathing. A chest X-ray showed his heart was very enlarged. Doctors still don’t know what caused his condition.
So began a life-or-death journey. Gelhar not only had a heart transplant, he suffered a devastating stroke.
He has other scars, evidence of a heart pump that was implanted in 2010 at what is now Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. That device — “to buy time,” he said — helped circulate blood to keep him alive during his three-year wait for a donor heart.
The left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, was battery-powered, but at night he plugged it into an electrical outlet. “I had a power cord coming out of my abdomen,” he said, showing a small scar.
Gelhar lives with the visible scars. Far worse have been the aftereffects of the stroke he suffered during his transplant surgery. Just 48 hours after the transplant, Gelhar had surgery on a clot in his brain stem that caused the stroke.
Jenn Johansen Gelhar, a 29-year-old cardiac nurse at The Everett Clinic, said her husband’s stroke was a complication of the transplant surgery. She remembers that terrifying time, when doctors feared her husband wouldn’t survive.
“Doctors were giving condolences,” she said. Sitting next to her husband Wednesday as he chatted and held their infant daughter, she added, “He’s a walking miracle.”
Recovery has been hard won.
After the stroke, he was in a coma for several weeks. Once awake, he was unable to walk or talk. He spent about three months hospitalized in Seattle, where physical and occupational therapy were intense.
At Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, he continues with weekly physical therapy sessions. He is now working on fine motor skills.
A year ago, he was in a wheelchair. Today, there is no obvious sign of Gelhar’s stroke. Still, he has trouble with one eye tracking properly. He can hold Sophie, but isn’t strong or sure-footed enough to carry her up and down stairs.
Now on disability, Gelhar doesn’t expect to be able to work on ships again.
He has done important volunteer work for LifeCenter Northwest. The federally designated nonprofit organ procurement organization works with families in Washington, Alaska, Montana and northern Idaho.
Gelhar lived with the critical need for organ donation. It’s a message he has spoken about to high school groups.
“It’s usually in a health class. We want kids to hear that question about organ donation before they hear it at the DMV,” he said, referring to the option of an organ-donor designation on a driver’s license.
It’s a conversation the Gelhars believe all families should have before a loved one dies. “It is ultimately up to the family,” Gelhar’s wife said. “You should really know what he or she would have wanted.”
With LifeCenter Northwest as an intermediary, Gelhar wrote a letter to the family of the man whose donated heart now beats in his chest.
The new father expressed his deep gratitude. In return, he received poignant letters from the donor’s parents.
“I wrote after Sophie was born,” Gelhar said.
Health concerns aren’t all behind them.
In a pillbox labeled by days of the week, Gelhar showed all the medications he needs, including immunosuppressant drugs that keep his body from rejecting his heart. There is physical therapy, and heart monitoring at UW Medical Center.
Yet with their baby girl and a vital gift of life, the road ahead looks so much brighter than what is behind them.
“We’re looking forward to our 30s,” Jenn Gelhar said.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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