‘Harvey’ gives heart patient ‘new shot at life’
Amid chaos, transplant recipient got joyous news
First, Hurricane Harvey devastated the home of Ken Akre’s youngest daughter, 32-year-old Erin, in Port Aransas. Two days later, its floodwaters chased his second oldest, 34-year-old Megan, from her house in west Houston. On the fifth day, it was Akre’s oldest daughter’s turn: The murky deluge from overflowing reservoirs crept up 36-year-old Jennifer’s street and into her living room.
Akre, 65, could do nothing but watch on TV from his hospital bed at Houston Methodist, where he’d been since July, awaiting a new heart. Then, in the midst of the chaos, the storm seemed to deliver him one. He called Megan first: “The doctors think they’ve got a heart for me.” Later, they named it Harvey. Akre cannot say for sure if the person whose heart now beats in his chest died as a result of the hurricane that devastated his daughters. Privacy laws prevent doctors from revealing those kinds of details. But some of the storm’s 77 vic-
tims were organ donors, officials said, and based on the timing, it is plausible — if not likely — that Akre’s donor was among them.
“It’s almost too much to wrap your mind around,” Akre said.
Dr. Tom MacGillivray, the surgeon who performed the operation, said Methodist closed the transplant program for a few days when Harvey’s flooding made it impossible to safely transport organs from other parts of the state. When they got the unit back up and running, it was on a limited basis, only accepting organs that easily could be moved from nearby hospitals.
That means Akre’s donor would have been local, and it means he or she would have died in the storm’s aftermath. Even after performing hundreds of transplants over the years, MacGillivray was moved by the symbolism.
“One of the things I find incredibly uplifting about being in the transplant business, is that in the midst of someone’s greatest tragedy, they are willing to be thoughtful and generous,” he said. “I think this is a perfect example of that on a grand scale: Someone who, in the middle of a hurricane, a terrible tragedy, reaps the benefit of someone’s incredible generosity.” ‘I felt truly helpless’
At first, Akre thought his family was the tragedy.
In Port Aransas, Harvey blew out the windows and doors of Erin Johnson’s home, tore off a section of her roof and filled the house with rainwater. Megan Hebert escaped her home by kayak with her husband and three children as the storm pummeled Houston with more than 50 inches of rain. By then, Jennifer Akre thought she’d made it through un- scathed, but then engineers started releasing millions of gallons of water from the overflowing Addicks and Barker reservoirs.
“I felt truly helpless,” Akre said, with a catch in his voice. “Here I was, my daughters all struggling through one of the hardest weeks of their lives, and I was tethered to a hospital bed.”
Then, early on the morning Sept. 5, one of his doctors stopped by with the official word: His new heart was on the way.
Erin was in the midst of scraping storm sludge out of her garage. Megan was sheltering with her inlaws in Sugar Land. Jennifer was with a group of volunteers who’d come to help her rip out drywall. They all dropped everything and headed for the hospital.
“I don’t think I slept for 24 or 36 hours,” said Erin, who made the four-hour drive from Port Aransas in the sweaty clothes she’d been working in that morning. “That week was probably the longest week of my life.”
The whirlwind continued after Akre was released from the hospital in September, following a successful transplant. His daughters were committed to ensuring one of them stayed with him, 24 hours a day, for a month. That left their spouses to carry much of the load in piecing their hurricane-damaged homes back together while also caring for their children and pets. Other family members, friends, even strangers stepped forward to help.
“It was tough juggling it all, but we were committed to making sure he was never left alone,” Jennifer Akre said. “He’s been taking care of us for a long time. This was our turn to take care of him.” From tragedy came good
Like many who have come close to death, Akre has begun to reevaluate what is important. He used to pride himself on being self-sufficient; now he strives to be humble enough to accept help when he needs it. As the longtime owner of a small business, he used to worry about what might go wrong; now when things go wrong, he searches for positives.
That’s why they named his new heart Harvey.
“After all that my family went through that week, I said, let’s find the positive in this,” Akre said. “I’ve got a new shot at life.”
A year from now, once Akre has been eased off anti-rejection medications and his immune system is healthy enough to be around large groups of people, he and his daughters plan to throw a big party. They’ll invite everyone who made a meal or swung a hammer or did anything to help them through their crisis over the past few months.
If it’s possible, they would love to send an invitation to the people who helped most of all: They hope the donor’s family would be willing to meet.
“Having lost my wife, seven and a half years ago, I understand that you don’t come to grips with this in a few weeks,” Akre said. “I get that. But I would love to meet them when they are ready.”
He wants them to know that some good came from their tragedy. And to say thanks.